Left inset: Mindy Osteen (Bradford County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Christopher Jones (GoFundMe). Background: Auntie Lili’s Daycare in Starke, Fla., where Mindy Osteen allegedly gunned down her children’s father as he was picking up their kids on Friday, July 25, 2025 (Google Maps).
A Florida woman allegedly gunned down the father of her children as he was picking them up from day care, blasting him multiple times with a 9 mm handgun while saying, “Please, let the monster die,” according to police.
“You got to die,” Mindy Osteen, 34, told her children’s dad, Christopher Jones, as she pumped bullets into him on Friday at Auntie Lili’s Daycare in Starke as he was picking up their two kids, according to her arrest report. Starke is in northern Florida, around 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville.
At least six other children and two employees were inside the day care at the time of the evening shooting attack.
“Chris, you can’t kill [redacted],” Osteen allegedly said after firing. It was not immediately clear who Osteen was apparently referring to. It appears that the children’s individual names were redacted from the affidavit, according to a Law&Crime review of the document.
“I’m not killing nobody,” Jones replied.
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Witnesses told cops that Jones was trying to load the kids into his vehicle when Osteen set upon him with an Arex Delta 9 mm pistol that she had hidden in a backpack. Security footage allegedly shows Osteen lurking close by before she starts firing at Jones, according to the arrest report.
“[Jones] puts in the car seats in the back seat of his vehicle as Mindy follows and watches,” the report alleges. “Christopher is sitting in the driver’s seat with the driver door opened. Mindy walks directly up to Christopher and fires three shots as she backs up slightly. She then walks back up to Christopher and fires two more shots. Christopher can be heard screaming.”
Bradford County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on scene and Smith allegedly told them Osteen was responsible for the shooting.
“I’m right here y’all,” Osteen told the deputies, according to her arrest report. “I done it in self-defense.”
Details have not been released on what Osteen meant. Smith was rushed to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Osteen was being held on charges of first-degree murder, cruelty toward a child, weapon possession, and larceny. She was being held Monday without bond.
