Allen’s Fu­ner­al Home Lim­it­ed has tak­en over fu­ner­al arrange­ments for the four vic­tims of last week’s fa­tal shoot­ing at Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma.

The home has, how­ev­er, told rel­a­tives that the cas­kets will have to be sealed at the fu­ner­al due to the poor state of the bod­ies.

Rel­a­tives of Faith Pe­terkin, 10; Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14; Shane Pe­terkin, 17; and Tiffany Pe­terkin vis­it­ed the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James on Tues­day.

Their fa­ther said three of the bod­ies showed ma­jor signs of de­com­po­si­tion. He said Shane’s body, how­ev­er, was recog­nis­able.

The bod­ies had been stored at an­oth­er fu­ner­al agency.

Sec­re­tary of Allen’s, Jen­ny Thomp­son-Pierre, told Guardian Me­dia that they were as­sist­ing with the fu­ner­al al­though they were not re­spon­si­ble for the con­di­tion of the bod­ies.

With tears in her eyes, Thomp­son-Pierre said the on­ly way this could have hap­pened was if the bod­ies were not stored prop­er­ly.

“From my ex­pe­ri­ence, the num­ber one thing you do is you get re­frig­er­a­tion,” she said.

She said rel­a­tives, who had al­ready lost their loved ones in sec­onds, will not get a chance to say a prop­er good­bye at the fu­ner­al.

She added, “On top of the fact that she (the moth­er of the vic­tims) has to bury her kids, she can’t kiss them, she can’t touch their faces, the nor­mal thing you do in fu­ner­als, you al­ways touch your loved ones, who want a hug, who want a kiss.”

Thomp­son-Pierre called on the fu­ner­al home re­spon­si­ble to reach out to the fam­i­ly and do some­thing.

“My sug­ges­tion (to the oth­er fu­ner­al home) is to reach out to the TTPS and say, ‘lis­ten, we know we were as­signed to pick up these bod­ies but un­for­tu­nate­ly, we are not in a po­si­tion to store the bod­ies. Could you all re­as­sign and have the po­lice re­move the bod­ies and put them in a home in a po­si­tion to store the bod­ies?’.”

She said when the vic­tim’s moth­er vis­it­ed the home on Wednes­day, she held on to her and cried.

Thomp­son-Pierre said this is not the coun­try she knew and called for peo­ple to put down the guns.

“We are way off, there is no love, no­body is think­ing of what’s be­ing done. If we could just live in love, like every­body is your fam­i­ly, lend a help­ing hand, share a plate of food, laugh,” she cried.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the fu­ner­al home in ques­tion.

The man­ag­er said they were not re­spon­si­ble for the con­di­tion of the bod­ies. The home is al­so ex­plor­ing its le­gal op­tions.

Mean­while, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Curt Si­mon said the po­lice are en­cour­aged by what is de­vel­op­ing in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­ders on Sep­tem­ber 22, which oc­curred around 12.25 am.

The in­ci­dent caused fear among res­i­dents. Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers have since fled the com­mu­ni­ty.

Since then, there have been 24-hour po­lice pa­trols through­out the area, which some peo­ple wel­come.