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 fatally shot the father of her children as he arrived to pick them up on Friday, July 25, 2025 (Google Maps).
A Florida mother has been sentenced to prison for killing the father of her children during a daycare pickup.
Mindy Osteen, 35, received a 100-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and additional charges tied to the July 2025 shooting. Authorities said Osteen opened fire on Christopher Jones with a 9 mm handgun at their children’s daycare in Starke, about 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville, shooting him multiple times while saying, “You got to die.”
“Please, let the monster die,” Osteen told Jones as she continued firing at Auntie Lili’s Daycare, according to her arrest report.
At least six other children and two daycare employees were inside the building when the evening shooting unfolded.
After the gunfire, Osteen allegedly said, “Chris, you can’t kill [redacted],” according to the arrest report. Investigators did not clarify whom she appeared to be referencing, and the children’s names were blacked out in the document.
“I’m not killing nobody,” Jones replied.
Witnesses told police Jones was trying to get the children into his vehicle when Osteen attacked him with an Arex Delta 9 mm pistol she had concealed in a backpack. Surveillance video allegedly showed Osteen waiting nearby before she began shooting, the arrest report states.
“[Jones] puts in the car seats in the back seat of his vehicle as Mindy follows and watches,” the report said. “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 Jones told them Osteen was responsible for the shooting.
“I’m right here y’all,” Osteen told the deputies. “I done it in self-defense.”
Jones was rushed to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Osteen was booked on charges of first-degree murder, cruelty toward a child, weapon possession, and larceny. Court records show that she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a felon, discharge of a weapon or firearm during school activity or within 1,000 feet of a school, shooting or throwing deadly missiles into dwellings, buildings or vessels, and grand theft of a firearm.
