BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The Starke man shot by a woman at Starke’s Auntie Lil’s Daycare last Friday was seeking custody of two children he had in common with the shooter.
According to the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, Mindy Osteen, 34, shot Christopher Jones, 37, while the victim was in his vehicle, and the couple’s two-year-old son and one-year-old son were in the vehicle with their father.
Sheriff’s Maj. George L. Konkel, Jr. said that in a video he viewed, Jones exited the vehicle after the initial rounds, and the 34-year-old chased him, eventually to the front of the daycare, where Osteen shot him again.
The victim later died at HCA Starke ER.
Osteen was arrested for homicide, child cruelty, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and larceny.
According to court papers, Jones filed paperwork at the Bradford County Courthouse beginning in November 2024 to establish paternity of the two boys.
Wanted custody on weekends
On November 19, 2024, Jones filed a petition to determine paternity and for related relief.
In that document, he stated that he and Osteen were together from July 2021 through November 2024, and that the couple had one son in August 2022 and a second in November of the following year.
On the same day, Jones filed a proposed parenting plan under which he would have custody of the boys on the weekends.
Sister tried to get Osteen Baker Acted
In December 2024, Jones filed an emergency motion for child pickup. In the motion, Jones stated that the children were in immediate danger of harm because of the mother’s mental health.
“The mother’s mental health is not well,” wrote Jones in the motion. “(Her sister) called me on Dec. 13 to come pick up my sons because the mother, Mindy Osteen, was having a severe mental breakdown. She doesn’t even know who her father is.”
Jones wrote that he took the children with him on the evening of Dec. 13. The following day, after Osteen called the sheriff’s office, he returned the boys to the sister’s home in Sampson City.
“Her sister…told me that she does not trust Mindy Osteen to be alone with our boys because of her current mental health situation,” Jones continued, adding that the sister was trying to get Osteen involuntarily committed for an evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act.
However, at the time of Jones’s petition, his paternity had not yet been established, and his motion was denied.
Mediation failed
In January 2025, Circuit Judge George Wright ordered the couple to undergo mediation to resolve their differences. However, the following month, a mediator reported that the effort did not result in an agreement.
The mediator noted that Jones attended the session with a lawyer and Osteen represented herself.
After the failed mediation, Wright set a non-jury trial date of September 18.
Victim: ‘Help me please’
One week after Wright set the trial date, Bradford Sheriff’s Deputy Kyle Mozingo said he received a dispatch to Auntie Lil’s Daycare on Starke’s Washington Street regarding an armed white female.
Monzingo reported that he arrived at the facility at 6 p.m. and found Jones “lying in the doorway of the day care bleeding profusely from what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds.”
The deputy also made contact with Osteen, who was on the ground in handcuffs, clad in a Bonefish Grill uniform.
Mozingo wrote that after putting the suspect in the back of his patrol car, he started interviewing witnesses.
One woman told the deputy that while she was strapping her child into a car seat, she heard three or four gunshots.
“(The witness) advised that she saw a blonde, white female, wearing a white Bonefish Grill shirt and black pants, standing by a car with a gun in her hand, shooting at a white male in his vehicle,” wrote Mozingo.
The woman added that she then saw the victim run from the car and toward the building, holding his chest, with blood on his shirt.
“As Christopher entered the daycare, (the witness) observed Mindy following him with the gun,” the deputy reported.
The woman said she then heard two more shots coming from inside the daycare. The witness then drove to the other side of the block to protect her child and called 911.
Mozinger then interviewed another eyewitness, who told him she saw a black SUV blocking the roundabout, and a woman in a Bonefish Grill shirt pacing around the vehicle.
“Then she saw her strapping (redacted) in the passenger back seat,” the deputy wrote. “(The witness) advised she began walking up to the front door of the daycare and saw blood, and the door closed…The door swung open, and she saw a white male laying on the floor, covered in blood, reaching out his hand and stating, ‘Help me please,”
As the woman fled from the building, she saw a deputy approaching and told the officer that someone was on the floor and that children were still inside.
Mozinger said Jones was transported to Starke ER, where he was pronounced dead at 7:03 p.m.
Shooter: ‘You got to die, Chris.’
Det. Logan Hough wrote in the same report that he viewed a video of the incident recorded on a doorbell camera. He gave the following account of what he saw.
“I observed Christopher pull up to the daycare front door at approximately (5:47 p.m). Christopher then walked into the daycare to retrieve (redacted). At (5:50 p.m.) Mindy walks up to the front door with a backpack and stands between the front door of the daycare and Christopher’s vehicle.”
Hough added that the daycare owner walked the children out of the building, and their mother hugged and held them.
Jones then walked out, loaded items into the vehicle, and strapped the children into car seats. Osteen followed and watched.
As Jones got into the driver’s seat, Osteen stayed back by the passenger’s side back door.
“Mindy then walks around the back of the vehicle as she approaches Christopher, she has her hand inside the backpack she is holding,” Hough reported. “Christopher is sitting in the driver’s seat with the driver’s door opened. Mindy walks directly up to Christopher and fires three shots as she backs up slightly. She then walks back up to Christopher and fires two more shots. Christopher can be heard screaming.”
Osteen then jogged out to the front of the vehicle, and Jones ran to the back. The woman then approached Jones again and fired a round toward him in the direction of Bradford High School.
Jones ran to the building for cover, but after opening the daycare’s outer door, he found the inside security door locked, trapping him between the two doorways.
“Mindy appears to be trying to clear a malfunction in the firearm,” Hough wrote. “She then gets the malfunction cleared and goes into where Christopher was trapped. Mindy then fires three more shots at Christopher. After the third shot, Christopher stops screaming.”
The gun appears to jam again, and Osteen is seen walking in front of the daycare while her children are heard screaming from the vehicle. Unable to clear the malfunction, Osteen walks back to Jones’s vehicle.
“Mindy then places the firearm in the driver’s seat of Christopher’s vehicle as she says, ‘Please let the monster die.’ She then repeats it as she opens the rear door where (redacted) are located.”
Hough said Jones then paced back and forth between the daycare and vehicle, before finally walking up to her victim, unarmed, and addressing him.
“You got to die, Chris. You can’t kill (redacted).”
Christopher then says, “Help me”.
Mindy then says “Chris you can’t kill (redacted)”.
Chris then says, “I’m not killing nobody”.
Hough reported that Osteen then walked away from the door and down the steps.
Moments later, deputies arrive.
Cpl. Trenton Lovell is one of the first to arrive and goes to Jones, who tells him Osteen was the shooter.
“While other deputies arrive,” Hough wrote, “Mindy can be seen walking around. Mindy then walks to the front of Christopher’s vehicle and puts her hands up and says, ‘I’m right here, y’all. I done it in self-defense.’”
