BY KIMMO MATTHEWS

Observer staff reporter

matthewsk@jamaicaobserver.com

TWO weeks before 22-year-old Shanique Walters was brutally shot dead by criminals, a man travelling in a motorcar had made an attempt to lure her into the vehicle while she was on her way home in Hope Pastures, St Andrew.

The slain student’s mother, Heather Walters, made the revelation yesterday, adding that when her daughter told her of the incident she felt a chill run down her spine.

“I was at home when she called me and told me about the incident. Instantly my heart skipped a beat,” the mother told the Jamaica Observer during an interview.

“Immediately I told her that she had to report the matter, but she told me it was just a one-off case,” said Walters.

The Old Harbour resident said that she decided to let the incident pass, but still could not rid herself of the feeling of unease.

On Wednesday, Walters’s apprehension turned into grief, as the daughter whom she regarded as the centre of her world was brutally slain on Hope Boulevard in St Andrew shortly before 7:00 pm.

The mother’s sense of foreboding apparently heightened just about the time that her daughter, a student at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), was being mercilessly gunned down.

“I was at home when mi hear someone knock on mi door. When I opened it I saw one of my neighbours standing at the doorway and trembling,” Walters related.

But, before the neighbour got an opportunity to tell her that death had taken away her child, the mother said she slammed the door shut.

“Have mercy, mi can’t believe seh Shanique gone,” Walters lamented as she sat at a table in her yard.

A few neighbours and church friends came over to console her as she fought back the tears.

Police report that Shanique and another female student were walking on Hope Boulevard shortly before 7:00 pm when two men in a silver motorcar drove up and demanded that the women hand over their bags.

According to the police, the friend handed over her bag, but Walters refused and ran off.

Police said that was when one of the men got out of the car and shot her in the head as she ran, killing her on the spot. Her lifeless body was left in a pool of blood on the roadside.

The nature of Shanique’s murder rocked UTech to its core and also brought to a screeching halt the hopes and dreams of an entire family who were looking forward to having the first medical practitioner in their fold.

The killing also brought to an end the anticipation that residents in her her community harboured of seeing her blossoming into an aspiring youth leader.

Yesterday, scores of students at UTech dressed in black and wept openly as they reflected on Walters’s life. They described her as a quiet individual whose love for life knew no boundaries.

“Why did they have to take her life?” asked UTech student Nashekia Patterson. “How could someone be so cruel? Based on what I heard, she didn’t even have her phone or her tablet.”

Patterson explained that the only thing Walters had in her possession was $200. “The only reason she ran was because she panicked,” said the student.

Yesterday, Education Minister Ronald Thwaites called on the Jamaica Constabulary Force to “swiftly bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to justice” and to increase security surveillance of the adjoining residential areas that students of UTech and the University of the West Indies, Mona have to traverse.

Residents in Hope Pastures yesterday told the Observer that in the past three weeks more than 20 robberies have taken place in and around the area.