IT was a fatal wait. Chirpy reunion talks descended into gloomy funeral arrangements.

Peter Mindley’s son had been outside the country on an athletics scholarship for 11 years, and returned in August 2022. The 64-year-old farmer from Bellevue Housing Scheme, near Southfield in St Elizabeth, was eager to see his son after all those years. Mindley stood waiting at Kinkead Plaza.

An avid drinker, he got multiple requests from friends and relatives to get drinks elsewhere, but he turned them down. His reason was that he didn’t want to miss his son.

While he waited around 7:50 pm on August 26, 2022, three gunmen held up and robbed a lottery outlet at the plaza. Mindley, totally unaware, was shot by the gunmen as they made their escape. He died at the scene.

“He told everybody no; he just wanted to see his son, and he was killed. He was standing there looking down… just waiting to see him,” Vivlyn Stephenson, Mindley’s older sister, told the Jamaica Observer in a sombre tone.

“His son came down and he was staying with me so there was some arrangement for them to meet up by Kinkead Plaza. My husband and I were supposed to take him up there and he was supposed to meet him. I don’t know exactly what time, but my husband kept asking him, ‘Aren’t you ready?’ He was not ready,” she added.

Stephenson said she called Mindley minutes before 7:00 pm, but he didn’t pick up.

“I called Peter four minutes to seven [6:56 pm] and he didn’t answer. I was still waiting on his son to go up because he was still getting dressed. And about 7:51 pm, my niece called me.”

At that point her niece wailed, “Aunty Viv, gunman kill Peter.”

To this day, Stephenson said, the family remains dumbfounded by the loss.

“I’m telling you, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. He was a very loving, devoted brother. I just can’t… I still can’t keep it together,” she said, emotionally.

Stephenson recalled rushing to the scene that was still not cordoned off by the time she arrived. To appease her, she had to see his lifeless body to believe what she had heard over the phone.

“I just had to see him. Most people couldn’t do it, but I went up there and I saw him lying face down. And to this day, we cannot figure it out. He had no known enemies. Even the police say this has to be a hit job. As of now there is no evidence so we are here just trying to figure out what could have happened to our brother,” Stephenson told the Sunday Observer.

In December 2021 the murder of a Chinese couple rocked the community. Business people, 48-year-old Haikong Wan and 53-year-old Shiyun Shu of Bellevue District were killed during a robbery at Jojo Supermarket.

“My brother and I cried for the Chinese. That’s a shop that we support morning, noon and night; and I went there to put up flowers and I cried, and my brother Peter cried,” Stephenson recalled.

“And to see that actually less than a mile from there and in less than a year my brother was gunned down, is shocking. He didn’t have a business and they didn’t come to rob him but we are still in shock. We have no answers. This is where we are,” she lamented.

In his earlier years Mindley supplied hotels in Montego Bay and Kingston with vegetables. Eventually, he started going from farm to market.

“He was on the do with his farming. He was very happy. Peter should be here farming right now and doing what he loves. Everybody in the community loves Peter,” his big sister said.

She told the Sunday Observer that she, and the family by extension, were still reeling. The pain was intensified after they saw CCTV footage of the murder.

“My niece cries every day, she and her other sister. They were born in the same house with Peter and they grew up. They grew up like brother and sister. He was too decent and too nice a person to just be taken away from us like that. I don’t know. I was crying this evening because I never thought I could hold it together to even speak the way I’m speaking now,” she said.

Michelle Ellis, Mindley’s niece, told the Sunday Observer: “He was not just my uncle; I was very close to him. He was like my brother. When I got the news that Friday night, I fell to the floor in my kitchen. He was a good man that didn’t deserve to die like that. I still cry every day for him.”

Ellis decried the circumstances surrounding her uncle’s death.

“We still don’t know why he was killed because he was just there waiting for his son whom he had not seen in over 10 years. He was a loving person. For his family and his three children right now, it’s just tears in my eyes because of how he was murdered. My sister Cheryl is taking it very hard because we are a very close family.

“The family is not the same with Peter gone. He was such a good man. He did not give any problem, and he was the one we would call if we want to know what happened years ago… he could tell us the exact time and date. We miss him so much.”

And lack of transparency from the police regarding the progression of the investigation only fans the flames.

“I’ve spoken with the detective a few times but I’m the one who would always have to initiate the call. They came here once, and that was after I reached out and asked if nobody is coming to take a statement. They showed up to my house once. I know most murders are not solved overnight but you would think that every once in a blue moon they could update me on the status of the investigation,” Stephenson related. “No — I have to initiate everything.

“Most times they don’t reply, and I don’t knock them because I’m more sensible than that. I know there are so many other things to deal with, and crime in St Elizabeth has gone through the roof.”

Stephenson maintained that their family had a “close-knit” relationship, having grown up in Southfield together — long before the district was even named. She then reflected on the last conversation she had with Mindley before he was killed.

“My brother was a farmer and he goes out to the town every day — 365 days of the year. The last time I spoke to my brother he had a big sweetsop that he got off the property, and he said, ‘I love this but I’m going to give it to you, my sister… this is for my sister.’ Him talk fast. That was the last time I spoke to my brother, and he was giving me something that he wanted for himself but because of a love for his sister, he gave it to me. It’s very hard,” she said.