HEARTLESS - 6-y-o, grandmother murdered in drive-by

"Arianna, I love you" are the words uttered by the sister of slain six-year-old Arianna Salmon, as the toddler kissed a portrait of herself and her sibling.

Arianna, a grade-one student at the St Jude's Primary and Infant School in St Andrew, was one of three victims of Friday night's shooting incident at Delano Avenue off Hagley Park Road. The girls' mother, Tashael Gillespie, considers it a miracle that the toddler was not shot as well, when a gunman unleashed his terror on five persons, including Arianna, her mother and her grandmother, Marie Salmon. After the barrage, 47-year-old shopkeeper Salmon, Arianna's grandmother, and 34-year-old Michael Smith also lost their lives. The six-year-old was doing some artwork when she was killed.

"God know, me stand up beside my mother and all me a see a the fire from the gun, and me just stand up deh, caah move. Arianna was sitting down and she [the toddler] was right beside me. Me nuh know how we nuh get shot," Gillespie recounted. Gillespie said she only ran when she saw Smith running away from the area.

"Even when him a run, me still nah look fi the three-year-old. Me look and see Arianna a grung, with her eyes closed," the grieving mother explained. Moments later, Gillespie said she kicked off her slippers and frantically tried to get her mother and daughter transported to the hospital.

"Me see my mother take her last breath, and is like she did want me see her take her last breath. Me see her hands drop with the phone in her hand and the $1,000 weh 'Mickey' [Smith] just give her fi change," she told THE STAR. Gillespie shared with the news team that doctors tried for 30 minutes to save Arianna, even recommending that she undergo emergency surgery and receive a blood transfusion.

"Them even say they got a pulse, but she just couldn't make it out to do the surgery. A one shot, one shot she get in her chest," she wept, as she remembered her daughter, whom she described as loving and shy.

Gillespie said that plans were being made for her mother's birthday on December 19, which would have been celebrated with a cook-out.

"She would've been 48, and she say this birthday woulda be the best because her shop finally fix up the way she want it. Her shop was her priority, that's what she used to send her five kids to school," she said, adding that her mother assisted many persons with food. Gillespie said the incident is "still surreal".

"Me traumatised by the incident, and me know she [the toddler] traumatised by it. Me nuh know how me a go manage without my mother and Arianna. It was always us. Arianna would always say I'm the best mother to her, and my mother was my motivator," she expressed.