Fam­i­ly and friends will gath­er this week­end to cel­e­brate the life of J’lay­na Arm­strong, the eight-year-old girl who was among four peo­ple killed in a shoot­ing along La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant on the night of April 20.

A fu­ner­al no­tice states that the ser­vice will take place on Fri­day at New­town St Patrick’s Church from 10 am. Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, a pro­ces­sion will move from the church to the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery, where J’lay­na will be laid to rest..

The no­tice asks at­ten­dees not to wear print­ed T-shirts.

In a sep­a­rate an­nounce­ment, rel­a­tives and sup­port­ers are plan­ning a Peace Walk and Can­dle­light Vig­il in her mem­o­ry on Sat­ur­day. The event will pro­ceed from Wood­ford Square to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah from 5 pm, with par­tic­i­pants en­cour­aged to wear pink and bring can­dles.

A mes­sage shared ahead of the vig­il de­scribes J’lay­na as “our sun­shine, our per­former, and our heart,” adding that while “her stage has moved to heav­en, her light still shines on every one of us.”

“We walk in ho­n­our. We gath­er in love. We aren’t just walk­ing to re­mem­ber; we are walk­ing to en­sure her spark nev­er fades and that her love con­tin­ues to pro­tect the chil­dren of our com­mu­ni­ty,” the mes­sage stat­ed.

J’lay­na was one of four vic­tims in what po­lice are treat­ing as a quadru­ple mur­der.

Ini­tial re­ports in­di­cat­ed that the vic­tims were trav­el­ling in a red Mit­subishi Lancer when gun­men opened fire on the ve­hi­cle around 7.45 pm near a Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist church and a near­by pedes­tri­an walkover. The ve­hi­cle re­port­ed­ly crashed af­ter com­ing un­der heavy gun­fire. - Chester Sam­bra­no