Mom allegedly gunned down her children’s dad at Fl. day care

A Florida mom has been charged with murdering the father of her children as he picked them up from day care — allegedly gunning him down in front of their kids while saying, “Please, let the monster die.”

Mindy Osteen, 34, allegedly showed up unexpectedly on Friday as Christopher Travis Jones, 37, picked up their two kids at Auntie Lili’s Childcare Center in Starke, according to a police report obtained by WCJB.

She stopped to hug her kids as Jones took them to his car — then pulled out a gun and fired three times at him once he was in the front seat, with their kids nearby in the back, according to the report, which did not say how old the pair’s children are.

The dad got out, screaming, and tried to run for cover as bullets continued to ring out. But he was unable to get through a second security door and was hit several more times before the gun jammed, the report noted.

“Please, let the monster die,” Osteen was heard saying on surveillance footage, according to the police report.

“You got to die,” she allegedly told Jones. “Chris, you can’t kill my kids,” she was heard telling him — to which he replied, “I’m not killing nobody.”

The dad was still alive when deputies arrived, and he identified Osteen as the shooter. She gave herself up without incident — allegedly telling police, “I’m right here y’all. I done it in self-defense.”

Jones was rushed to a local hospital, where he later died of his wounds.

Jones’ and Osteen’s kids were not injured. It was not clear how old they are. Another six children and two employees were inside the day care at the time but were not injured.

The mom “turned into this person” with just “a flip of a switch,” Major George Konkel of the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office told News4Jax. 

“What’s kind of more haunting than anything else … is that it looked like the typical child pickup from a day care. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary,” Konkel said.

The children are currently in the care of relatives. “That’s going to impact them for the rest of their lives,” Konkel said. “Now they, in essence, lost both parents in one incident.”

The Bradford County Sheriff’s Office revealed that their last interaction with the couple involving violence was in April 2024 — with charges against both Osteen and Jones later dropped.

Jones’ sister, Melanie Russo, maintained that her brother was the only victim of such violence, despite Osteen blaming the shooting on self-defense and calling her late ex a monster.

“People want to stand up and speak for women all the time,” the sister said. “Men can be victims too, and I saw it with my own two eyes. I saw him live through it.”

Osteen was booked into the Bradford County Jail on charges of first-degree murder, cruelty toward a child, weapon possession, and larceny.