Jaqueline Brown said she had a sense of foreboding after a really bad dream on July 10. However, she never guessed that the evil would befall her daughter, Woman Constable Crystal Thomas, four days later.

“Mi get di dream from the Friday before them shoot her, but mi never know seh a Cris (Crystal) the dream was for. Mi dream seh a me dem try kill,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer three days after her daughter was brutally murdered by gunmen who hijacked a passenger bus on which she was travelling home last Tuesday night.

Police reported that the 24-year-old cop, who was stationed at Denham Town Police Station, had challenged the gunmen.

Two suspects have since been held in connection with her murder, which shocked the nation and elicited an extraordinary expression of condolence from a diplomat — US Ambassador to Jamaica Luis Moreno.

Last Friday, when the Observer visited Brown at her home in Banana Hole District, Kitson Town, St Catherine, the distraught mother spoke of the dream she had.

She recalled that in the dream she was in Kingston when a black man approached her saying he wanted to kill her for a long time; he took out a gun and began shooting at her. She said that she called on Jesus and ran for her life, escaping the man. “Mi run ’til mi feel like mi leg dem a go drop off,” Brown said.

Brown remembers waking up breathless on the Saturday morning, but not understanding the purpose of the dream.

“Something did different bout dis dream. It never come clear to mi when mi wake,” she said, adding that she felt a sense of unease.

“Mi never know seh a mi little daughter them come for,” she repeated as she paced the room in the small house.

“Crystal’s biggest dream was her house,” Brown said with a smile and a blank stare, as she recalled her daughter’s promise to her.

“She seh ‘mommy, mi want a house that you can come lay down in and feel comfortable’. She did want fi tek wi outta this,” Brown said, waving her hands around the sparsely furnished two-room house which she shares with her mother, as well as her daughter Kaleisha Whittle and her two children.

“She was renting a place in Eltham for the time being, but my daughter always dream fi have her own home. A she did fi tek wi outta this,” Brown said.

Brown told the Observer that Thomas had longed to travel, and having been granted a US visa recently had hoped to leave the island for the first time in November this year.

Whittle remembered her sister as “a good girl”.

“From school days she never idle. Straight to school and straight home for Crystal — no idling on the road. She always know what she want in life, and she was hard-working. Even when we lived apart, we never lose that connection from each other. She was always there for me and my two kids and mommy,” Whittle said.

She also described her sister as very helpful, resourceful, and said she was always pleasant to everyone she met.

“She was a trying girl. The first time she did CXC, she get five subjects, but she go back fi two more because she know what she want. She never give up,” said Whittle, who became too emotional to continue.

“Mi never have a problem with Crystal,” Brown interjected. “From the day she born, never had a problem. Mi daughter never trouble nobody.”

“Mi proud’ til mi can’t proud no more,” Brown exclaimed. “And is not because this happen why mi proud. Crystal a good girl, and everybody know that. People from all over the world a call mi because them feel it. Everybody feel it. So mi have to keep strong.”

Brown admitted that the past week has been very difficult, but said she was trying to remain strong. “Mi mash up, but is the courage weh mi have that help mi to go through. I’m happy I went and look at her body for myself, and mi talk to har yesterday [Thursday]. Is that why mi can even walk today. She give mi strength to carry on,” the mother said.

“From she dead, no light no turn off in the house. It rough,” she continued. “But this morning when mi wake mi see har stand up in the doorway, and she smiled. And a so mi know that everything a go alright.”

Brown also supported Police Federation Chairman Sergeant Raymond Wilson’s appeal for transportation to be provided to cops leaving work at nights.

Wilson had said that the request has been made repeatedly by the federation in wage negotiations, but it had fallen on deaf ears.

“As a police, she shouldn’t have to a take public vehicle from work in the first place, because police come in contact with the good and the bad every day,” Brown argued.