HIGHGATE, St Mary — Hard-working, humble, determined and vivacious were the adjectives used to describe Shellion Pinnock Lafayette in the numerous tributes made at the funeral service for the slain midwife yesterday.

The Highgate Church of Christ was filled to capacity as hundreds turned out to pay their last respects to Lafayette, who was murdered on January 16, just metres away from her home in Port Maria, St Mary.

Many spoke of the bright smile and the jovial personality of the mother, sister, daughter and friend so brutally snatched from their lives.

The 30-year-old midwife had just completed her studies at the Cornwall School of Nursing last April, which meant, as described by a member of the Jamaica Midwives Association, the health sector “saw the bud, but did not get to see the flower open.”

Lafayette only became a member of that association in December 2012.

She was said to have had all the attributes of a good midwife and had already left an indelible mark on the staff and patients at the Annotto Bay Hospital, where she was employed at the time of her murder.

In his remarks, Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson called for people who might have information on criminals to reveal this to the police.

“The time has come for us to declare that we have had enough and take back Jamaica from the criminals. We have to declare war on criminality. This scourge of violence must not be allowed to continue,” the minister said.

Lafayette was shot while driving her Toyota Starlet motor car towards her Farmer’s Heights home in Port Maria about 10:30 pm on Monday, January 16.

Residents who heard the gunfire summoned the police who discovered the injured midwife in her car, which had reportedly run off the road and into a ditch. She was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.

She had two children, ages 12 and seven.

Lafayette was buried in a family plot in Dean Pen, St Mary.