Hours before make-up artist Moesha Heath was killed on Sunday, she sent a cryptic message to her younger sibling. At the time, Heath's mother Shauna Matthews believed it was a desperate call for help, but her sister did not realise.
Later, the family of 23-year-old Clarendon resident Heath received a heart-stopping phone call, informing them that her lifeless, bullet-riddled body lay on the ground in a yard in Sheffield, Westmoreland.
"She send a voice note to her sister on the day when dem murder har and say 'if mi dead uno nah guh can even find a good-looking picture inna mi phone because mi nuh love take picture, so unno have to go put one video inna di programme," Matthews said.
Heath, she said, was more than a make-up artist.
"Moesha go around and see who is in need. She would feed the elderly and the homeless. She was a very, very loving girl. In South East Clarendon she would take the prescription of the elderly and go down a hospital and sit hours and fill it and bring it back. She would boil porridge from her home and carry it go give them. That's the type of person Moesha is," Matthews, in tears, said.
"A one good pickney mi have enuh. If Moesha nuh sweep yard at her home she will go to the old people dem home and sweep and clean. She a wash dem clothes, comb dem hair and cut dem nails. She love church and she love the Lord. She has never given me trouble. A mi belly pain and is the first mi a lose one pickney. Mi heart a pain mi, real pain. From mi pickney dead not even a cup a water mi nuh put a mi mouth," Matthews said.
According to police reports, approximately 5:50 p.m. Heath and a male companion reportedly drove into the yard where she had been living. Both were ambushed by three men armed with handguns. Heath and the man fled in different directions. Upon the police's arrival, Heath was found lying on her back, and soaked in blood, with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body.
The male escaped unharmed.
Matthews is urging the police to do a deep investigation in the search for a motive. Days prior, Matthews said Heath sent a series of messages that signalled she was in danger.
After a video call, Matthews said Heath reassured her that she would return home yesterday.
"I wanted to go for her but I did a surgery and I had to go back to the doctor and a suh mi never reach down there," Matthews added.
On the fateful day, Heath sent several voice notes, and calls, to her sister "but is like her little sister nah pick up that Moesha was crying for help", Matthews said.
She said that after she listened to the distressing voice notes, she tried calling Heath but her phone rang unanswered.
"Mi call until mi tired and she nah answer, mi all call John* (Heath's boyfriend) phone and him nah answer either," she said.
"Afterward mi see John a call mi and mi say 'thank yuh Jesus', and when mi say 'hello', him say 'yuh daughter body down there lay down'. Mi think a joke. Yuh know when mi believe, is when mi hear di police siren in the background," she said.
The disheartened mother said the contents in her belly literally moved when she saw a video of her daughter lying on the ground. She has been left with many questions.
"I got a video of my daughter on the ground with her head up underneath a tree and her phone placed neatly beside her. Suh if gunman a run down mi daughter how come she drop on her back and how her head reach up underneath the tree?" she said, also questioning why anyone would want to kill her daughter.
