SCHENECTADY – Jennifer Ostrander, or “JLo’” as many people affectionately called her, was fond of collecting elephant ornaments and hosting cookouts for family and friends.
But most of all, she loved doting on her four youngest children who lived with her, according to her mother and several siblings.
Born and raised in Schenectady, Ostrander, a gregarious woman who had seven children in all, endured tough times, struggling with drug addiction early in her adult life.
By her mid-20s, Ostrander managed to kick most of her bad habits, and made it her business to do right by her children, relatives said.
It makes it that much more painful for her family that she was killed by a bullet as she innocently sat on her Schenectady porch three years ago. The final of six suspects pleaded guilty this month to either being in the car or wielding a gun during a shooting that targeted the wrong house.
“She was messed up when she had her first couple of kids, and she was getting her life together. So with her younger kids, everything she did was around them,” said her mother. Tina Buskey, during a recent emotional interview where she and her daughters reflected on the travails and triumphs in Ostrander’s life that ended tragically when she was shot and killed in the summer of 2020 while sitting in a chair on the porch hanging out with friends at her Mont Pleasant home.
“That was one thing that she was very proud of, she used to let everybody know that she was clean.”
Ostrander, 31, was the not the intended target of several gun-toting men affiliated with the Bloods street gang, some from out of town, who fired multiple shots on Aug. 2, 2020 that were meant for a group of men on the porch who they believed to be Crips, prosecutors said.
None of the men were injured, but Ostrander was killed by the first…
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