By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A MOTHER and her 12-year-old daughter were shot and injured, and her boyfriend killed, after the woman’s ex stormed into their Montel Heights home early Tuesday morning with a gun and a cutlass, unleashing deadly violence.

The mother, Patricia Major, 41, and her daughter remain hospitalised in stable condition.

The scene was covered in blood in the wake of the violent attack. 

Relatives say this wasn’t a random outburst but a tragedy years in the making.

Ms Major reportedly filed complaints against her ex-boyfriend of 21 years, Jeffrey Mackey, and recently attempted to have him bound over to keep the peace. Still, around 1am, Mackey, 59, broke into her home and launched the attack.

According to Ms Major’s sister-in-law, the mother’s current boyfriend, Quincy Evans Sr, walked in and was immediately shot dead. Mackey then turned on Ms Major, attacking her with a cutlass before shooting her and her 12-year-old daughter.

By the time police arrived, Mackey was dead in a neighbour’s yard from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. A firearm was recovered nearby.

“She told him to leave her alone,” said the sister in law. “She thought he had listened.”

Just days before the attack, Ms Major reportedly tried to take legal action to keep Mackey away.

Their daughter, 18-year-old Tresia, told The Tribune her father had been unravelling for some time, writing disturbing notes and issuing threats.

“I know he wanted to kill her,” she said yesterday. “The police know that, so instead of the police lock him up, I don’t know why the police left him alone. This isn’t the first time.”

She recounted how her father would leave notes suggesting he planned to kill her mother and take his own life, writing things like: “She treat me like a dog so I gotta take her away with me.”

Tresia said her father was emotionally volatile, threatening her if she didn’t convince her mother to visit him.

She often tried to bridge the gap, but knew her mother no longer wanted the relationship.

“It’s couple times he hit on her,” she said. “She’d come back because he supported the family, but she did not fully want the relationship. He just didn’t acknowledge that.”

The sister-in-law said Ms Major only kept limited contact with Mackey to see her children, who lived with him. But every visit risked igniting his temper.

Now, the family is left in shock, struggling to make sense of how far Mackey went.

“He tripped like some kind of demon was in him,” said the sister-in-law. She added that the innocent boyfriend killed during the incident was “nice” and “sweet”.