FOR more than 30 years, Bernice Gray and Elser Stone lived and raised their children in the same community, and met most Sunday mornings to take the bus to church.

That they should die together, while consistent with that decades-old bond, still shocked family and friends — none of whom could have foreseen the tragic manner of their demise.

The two women were mowed down by a motorcar as they waited at a bus stop not far from their home off Henley Road in Waterhouse, on yet another Sunday morning on their way to church.

Gray, a 65-year-old higgler, and Stone a 51-year-old domestic helper, were standing under the bus stop in the vicinity of White Lane off Spanish Town Road in Kingston, when the driver of a white Honda Partner motorcar lost control of the vehicle, slamming into the bus stop and hitting the two women.

Inspector Aaron Fletcher from the Hunts Bay police said the driver of the ill-fated vehicle was also injured during the incident which happened shortly after 8 o’clock.

“We received a call that there was a fatal motor vehicle accident in the vicinity of Wray and Nephew and subsequent checks revealed that this motorcar was apparently travelling in a westerly direction when the driver apparently lost control and mowed down the bus stop and two elderly females who were standing there on their way to church.

One died there on the spot, the other one was pronounced dead at KPH (Kingston Public Hospital),” he told the Observer.

Later, an official account of the incident from the Constabulary Communication Network said that the driver of the car lost control when another motorist allegedly drove across his path.

Among those who gathered to view Gray’s lifeless body as it lay on the ground in front of the wrecked motorcar, was her son Rohan Knight who said that he was at the home he shared with his mother, father and three siblings when he got the news.

“Is just last night (Saturday night) mi give her a little smile when she come home from market, about after 10 o’clock,” Knight said, adding that he was asleep when his mother went to join her neighbour for their usual walk to the bus stop to go to church.

“This is a regular thing for her. Sometimes mi drop them down their church, because mi drive a little car, but most of the time they take their bus,” he said, unable to fight back the tears.

“Mi want har back, mi wish mi could get her back right now,” he cried in disbelief.

The father of Stone’s three children, Norris Daley said that he was near the bus stop when the accident occurred, but had not witnessed the incident.

“Mi leave her at home this morning and come out on the road, and when I was on the road, I see some people a run a go towards the bus stop and me see the bus stop lick down and them say a she dead,” said the elderly man, who was still in a daze.

Stone, he said, was a faithful Christian who attended church services religiously with Gray.

“Them two people deh were friends for years, years on top of years, nothing never change them,” he said.

More than two hours after the incident, only a few of the congregants at the Pentecostal Tabernacle Church on Wildman Street in downtown Kingston — where the two had been worshipping for the past five years — were aware of the tragedy.

A deacon told the Observer that church officials had heard about the accident, and had sent a group to Waterhouse to investigate, before they broke the news to the entire church.

But those who had already gotten the confirmation they needed, like Gray’s goddaughter, had to be consoled by some of the members as she bawled.

She and her family were later prayed for by the entire church after the news was announced to everyone. The church also offered up prayers for the family of the two women and the driver of the Honda Partner, who has since been arrested and charged with two counts of manslaughter.

He is booked to appear in the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, October 26.