The May Pen High School is now in mourning following the murder of 17-year-old Stefica Smith. She is the third schoolgirl to have been killed in the past four weeks. Photo: Jamaican Gleaner

Eight-year-old Shantae Skyers was found murdered in Sterling Castle, St Andrew on April 16 and 11-year-old Tricia Morris in Pond, Hanover on April 30.

Smith went missing on Saturday and this morning, her body was found in bushes in the Four Paths area of Clarendon.

Principal Winston Preddie said the news has shaken the entire school community where senior students are now writing their Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate papers.

"Since I came on the scene and telephoned them, they were hoping it was not true," Preddie told The Gleaner from the crime scene.

"While we are here and we believe that she is the person wrapped up under the sheet, we were still hoping that she is not the one," said Preddie.

The principal who accompanied Stefica’s father to the hospital said the body was nothing like the girl they knew.

"It was a terrible sight," he said.

The faced was bashed in and the throat slashed.

Smith was born in England but came to Jamaica when her parents returned home.

According to Preddie, the school was getting ready to mobilise a search team with her father when they got the news about the body being discovered in the Four Paths area.

The principal is demanding stricter punishment for child killers.

"Tell me what we gonna do? And we gonna go back to parliament, we gonna pass some nice laws to take care of people’s psychological affairs and we are gonna die one by one and nothing is gonna change?” he asked.

The child's father, Maurice Smith was too shaken to speak.