AT least two mothers will spend today mourning the deaths of their children, one losing her son after 45 years and the other, her daughter after 20.

The mothers’ lives were transformed on midnight Friday when their children, Winston Robinson, and Tiffany Shirley, were shot dead inside a Mannings Hill Road bar in St Andrew.

Today, instead of celebrating, they plod through day two of a crucible that is for them, too much to bear.

Relatives told the Jamaica Observer that Robinson and Shirley were killed in an apparent case of mistaken identity, following a confrontation between two couples earlier.

The stand-off, which led to the two being killed “innocently”, reportedly started over a ‘hefty paying’ gambling machine.

“Is like you have one machine in the store weh pay nuff money so everybody waan use dah machine deh,” said one female resident of Glen Drive, a community drenched in tears as it mourned Tiffany’s death yesterday.

“One girl, she come from bout here (Mannings Hill Road), did a use the machine and har money done. So she lef go fi more money and when she come back she see another girl a use the machine,” continued the woman. “She start fight with the girl weh she come si fi use the machine, cut har pure box and all mash all the girl face and dem ting deh.”

The fight escalated and two men, one of them the female victim’s male companion, also started fighting. At one point, chairs started to “fling”, emphasised the woman.

“So the girl, di one weh nuh come from bout here, and har man left and seh ‘unnuh tink a suh it a go guh?’. Likkle after that the other couple weh did inna di fight lef the bar too,” continued the woman as she prepared herself for the next part of her tale. “Likkle after that two man come back and one of them shoot Tiffany inna har belly. And when dem a go weh them shoot di next man.”

That ‘next man’, affectionately called Tata, a mechanic, was not just the father of an asthmatic 13-year old son; he seemed the father of the entire Burke Lane — where almost every street pole flew black flags, a popular symbol of bereavement in Jamaica’s inner-cities.

One police investigator theorised that the gunmen may have been after the girl who started the fight and her man. It appeared they were not sure of their targets, and instead fired on Tiffany and Robinson. “Dem bwoy deh just go deh fi kill somebody,” said the officer, adding that three shell casings were taken from the crime scene. Tiffany was killed inside the bar, while Robinson was shot at the entrance, minutes after parking his motorcycle outside the bar, police said.

Robinson’s sister, ‘Bibi’, sobbed hard as she listed relatives, including her nephew, who have fallen illl since hearing the news.

“Him wife nuh deh here because she gone wid him son to get him pump. Him pump not over here and him ketch asthma. My other sister she get a light stroke and deh a hospital. And my mother, lawd, she not taking it too well,” she said. Robinson’s mother sat among a string of relatives, not far from her daughter, outside their home.

She stared on, looking at nothing in particular.

“She cyaan tell you nothing right yah now,” said Bibi, glancing at her elderly mother. The woman seemed too fragile to cry.

Neighbours also couldn’t come to terms with Robinson’s death; his ‘washerman’, as if the picture of Robinson’s body on his sister’s cellphone was fake, washed his boss’ car spotless; while Robinson’s last client didn’t bother to go home after collecting his car Friday evening. He stayed behind, sharing the grief of the dozens of residents who had gathered at Robinson’s home early yesterday morning.

Bibi, the first to identify her bother at the Kingston Public Hospital, said that years ago Robinson had met in an accident which left him with pain all over his body. “So it just hard fi believe seh him get one gunshot and dead,” she cried, explaining that her brother was shot in the chest.

When the Sunday Observer visited Tiffany’s home, her mother was asleep. She dozed off about 10 minutes earlier — the first time she and many others in Glen Drive had slept since hearing the news.

About five of her relatives cried openly outside her home. One, ‘Kaydie’, seemed most torn by Tiffany’s death — and it was for good reason; on Friday morning Tiffany told her that she dreamt they were both shot.

“She dream seh dem shot she one time and seh dem shot me two time inna me belly. Is she she did a dream bout,” cried the woman. “Everything inna har mash up, liver, kidney. She couldn’t live, she couldn’t live,” she cried. A tear rolled down her left cheek while the other spattered on the ground.