A Florida mother who was captured on surveillance video saying “let the monster die” after shooting her former partner during a daycare pickup has been sentenced to 100 years in prison — and appeared to smile as the punishment was handed down.
Mindy Osteen, 34, is expected to spend the rest of her life behind bars for fatally shooting 37-year-old Christopher Travis Jones outside Auntie Lili’s Childcare Center in Starke, Florida, as their two young sons were nearby, according to WCJB.
During the sentencing hearing, Osteen was seen in handcuffs and a yellow jail uniform, grinning in court despite the decades-long prison term.
The deadly confrontation unfolded in July 2025, when Osteen arrived at the childcare center without warning. At first, the encounter appeared calm, with Osteen reportedly hugging Jones and their children.
Moments later, after Jones placed the boys in the back seat of his car and got behind the wheel, Osteen pulled a firearm from her backpack and fired three rounds into the vehicle.
Jones, screaming, fled the car and tried to seek safety inside the daycare. He was stopped at a second security door, and Osteen fired again, striking him several more times before the gun jammed.
“Please, let the monster die,” Osteen was heard saying in the surveillance footage.
“You got to die,” she also said to Jones, according to the recording. “Chris, you can’t kill my kids,” she told him, prompting Jones to respond, “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, telling police, “I’m right here y’all. I done it in self-defense.”
Jones later died at the hospital from his wounds.
Neither of their young sons were hurt, and have since been adopted by a woman not related to Jones or Osteen’s family, WSAZ reported.
Osteen avoided going to trial after she pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, several firearm-related charges, and discharging a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school and shooting into a vehicle.
She was sentenced last week to a total of 100 years in prison and was ordered to have no contact with Jones’ family.
“I hope she never has the ability to be back out on the street because she is a very, very dangerous person,” Jones’ great-aunt Phyllis Sands told WSAZ.
