Rasbert Turner, Gleaner Writer

Spanish Town, St. Catherine:

Two young children who bid their mother goodbye at their St. Catherine school yesterday morning, had no clue it would be the last time they would ever see her alive.

Just a short while later, Stephaleta Clarke would be shot and killed along Ferdie Neita Boulevard in Greendale, St. Catherine, by unidentified men in a Nissan motor car.

Clarke, 43, of Jones Avenue in the parish, had just left her nine- and six-year-old children at school about 7:35 a.m. when the car drove up with two men, one of whom proceeded to shoot her.

Warned to leave

The police were summoned and on examining the scene, picked up eight .45 calibre shells. As the news of Clarke's death spread, several persons gathered at the scene, including her older son, Oneil Brown, who said he had warned her to leave Jones Avenue just three days ago.

"I used to live there and I left because it is a very serious place," he said.

He noted, however, that his mother may have chosen to remain in the community with his three siblings because it would have been too costly to move out of the area.

Soon after the incident, police reportedly saw the vehicle some-where in Lauriston. The occupants, however, ran from the vehicle and escaped.

The police confirmed that the vehicle was stolen elsewhere in St. Catherine before it was used in the attack on Clarke.

Homicide detectives are con-ducting an investigation into the matter.