By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

TWO mothers are grieving after one of the first shootings of the year left a woman with four children dead and her boyfriend nursing gunshot wounds in the hospital.

Shantol Miller, 33, was killed in Nassau Village last Wednesday when two armed men exited a black jeep around 6.30pm and opened fire. The driver tried to escape but crashed and overturned on Alexandria Boulevard. A third gunman fired more shots before all suspects fled in the jeep, which was later found abandoned on a dirt road off Charles Saunders Highway. The victims were taken to the hospital in a private vehicle.

Mary Miller, Shantol’s mother, recounted a worrying call last Wednesday from one of her daughter’s friends, asking where she was. Mrs Miller drove to her daughter’s part-time job at McDonald’s, but when she arrived, her daughter was nowhere to be found.

When the phone rang again, she learned of the shooting. She said all she could do was “scream and pray to God”.

Her grandchildren played in the background when she spoke to The Tribune yesterday.

“I’m not sleeping. You know, I just lost a son about seven months ago,” Mrs Miller said, noting the son died from a heart condition.

She said the grief of losing two children in such proximity is overwhelming, adding: “They are my babies.”

She described Shantol as a sweet, joyful person who loved laughter and noted that her grandchildren want justice for their mother’s death.

Alana McGregor, mother of Shantol’s boyfriend, said her son was being electronically monitored and has been attending court for a murder case. He was taking Shantol to work and stopped in Nassau Village to get gas money from a friend on the day of the shooting.

She said for a while, people held off from telling her son that his girlfriend had died. She said when she could no longer keep it from him, she told him, and he immediately broke down, asking about the well-being of her children.

She said her son would have also died if they waited for an ambulance. She said he told her Shantol could have survived, noting that she was talking on the way to the hospital; he believes medical staff took too long to help them.

She said her heart is broken over Shantol’s death, likening it to losing her own child.

Although her son did not have children with Shantol, Ms McGregor said her family had adored her from the start due to her spirit.

She said her son isn’t perfect.

“I want my son to get well and live, and for him to take this as a big example,” she said. “Let him know that God has warned him too many times.”