Main image: A Quality Inn parking lot where a mother of two was killed over the weekend (screengrab via WPTV). Inset: Jamie Felix (Manatee K-8 Academy/Facebook)
A mother of two was shot to death in a hotel parking lot — while her children watched — over the weekend in Florida, authorities say.
Jamie Rae Felix, 45, was killed by her husband, Ray Felix, 60, in front of the Quality Inn located near Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, according to the Port St. Lucie Police Department.
Later the same day, Ray Felix would turn the gun on himself.
“Jamie Felix is a beautiful soul who will live forever in the hearts of those who love her,” her friend, Monica Jackman, told Tequesta-based ABC affiliate WPBF. “She loved her children to depths that words can’t express, she was incredibly brave and resilient, she had the most amazingly contagious laugh. She was compassionate, she was loyal and dedicated, she was a girl’s girl who lifted up her friends at every opportunity.”
The incident began on Friday, March 29, late in the afternoon, when Jamie Felix and her two boys were leaving what police referred to as a recreational business, according to The Palm Beach Post.
While walking to the family’s Chevrolet SUV at around 4 p.m., Ray Felix, somehow disguised and brandishing a gun, hustled the woman and their two children, ages 10 and 17, into a Nissan rental car. Then, the assailant forced his estranged wife to send her co-workers at Manatee Academy an email. That email “concerned” Jamie Felix’s fellow teachers, who eventually reported the odd message to police, according to spokesperson Master Sgt. Dominick Mesiti.
The four drove around for awhile and argued about their in-progress divorce. Later, they returned to where the family’s vehicle was parked. There, Ray Felix held his wife at gunpoint and forced the older boy to get behind the wheel of the rental car and to follow the SUV where his mother and younger brother were being held hostage.
The ill-fated family drove around for hours — at some point making its way into nearby West Palm Beach.
Sometime after 7 p.m., the two vehicles headed back toward Port St. Lucie but stopped at the motel in question, West Palm Beach Police spokesperson Mike Jachles said during a press conference the next day, according to West Palm Beach-based CBS affiliate WPEC.
In the parking lot, the two adults got out of the SUV. Details are scarce about the next few moments but Jamie Felix died soon thereafter.
The beloved mother and math teacher was shot multiple times and left to die on the pavement around 7:20 p.m. Ray Felix got back into his rental car and drove away. Officers arrived just after 7:30 p.m. to find the two boys sitting with their mom on the ground. Fire-rescue workers attempted to revive the woman but she was pronounced dead at the scene. The boys were not physically harmed, police said.
Ray Felix thought to return the rental car to the agency, police said. The killer was found less than a mile away and approached by several members of law enforcement. Then, he shot himself in the head.
“No officers fired any shots or anything,” Jachles told assembled local media. “He appeared intent on one thing, and that’s taking his life.”
The killer himself died around 10:30 p.m. at a local hospital.
