INSURANCE sales agent, Peter Tomlinson, 41, was shot dead by a gunman on Wednesday night in what was being suggested yesterday could have been a case of mistaken identity.

Police said that Tomlinson and a woman were sitting in his parked motor car on Lanetree Road, Kingston 10, when the gunman, who had been a pillion rider on a motorcycle, walked past the car, returned and opened fire.

Tomlinson, who was hit in the chest and armpit, died on the spot, but his companion escaped unhurt.

Police officials indicated last night there had been a report of a threat, apparently by a jilted lover, on the life of another woman, who lived in the same complex as the one who sat in the car with Tomlinson.

There was speculation that it was that threat that the gunman intended to carry out.

Tomlinson, from a Stockfarm Road, St Andrew address, was formerly on the sales staff of Life of Jamaica insurance company, but became an independent agent three years ago.

“The mood here is a sombre one,” Mark Chisholm, Tomlinson’s friend and head of the LOJ sales force, told the Observer yesterday. “A lot of people here are shocked to hear the news. He had a lot of friends here.”