OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY)– Jan.16 is the day the family of Kiare Vallian, 29, of Opelousas, will always remember.
It was the day she was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting by an unknown shooter, all while sitting in her car on Elementary Lane.
Police said they found 24 shell casings from three different firearms. Vallian died 11 days later, on Jan. 27, after fighting for her life in the hospital. Now, the family wants to bring her homicide story up again after eight months have passed and no one has been arrested in her case.
“It kills me because sometimes I wake up at night, and I gotta put my hand over my mouth because I would scream,” Holly Winch, the victim’s mother said while in tears. “It’s hard because me and my daughter were really close. We were close and to go through this, and someone that knows something and not saying anything.”
She mentioned her daughter leaves behind her nine-year-old son, Kaiden.
“Her only son, that’s all that he knows, and now he’s acting out, and he’s crying, and he’s grieving for her and asking questions, and there’s nothing that I can say because it’s nothing that can bring her back,” Winch said. “I can’t give him a name, nothing, and me being a mother and my only daughter, it hurts me because she didn’t deserve that.”
Winch told News 10 her anxiety is high knowing the person responsible is still free.
“It bothers me because I’m a sociable person, and I’m a friendly person,” Winch said. “I don’t like to go to different places because it messes with my anxiety. I hear different things, and the same name comes up. I’m not going to say the name, but the same name comes up, so if I know and the streets talk, I’m sure someone knows and just not saying anything about it.”
“It sickened my stomach,” she added. “I cried out for my child because that’s my only child, and I know that wasn’t the lifestyle she lived, and it hurt me to the core, to my soul.”
N’Kenge Vallian, the victim’s brother, and Samuel Vallian, her grandfather, stood in support as News 10 spoke with the Winch. Samuel recalled speaking to Vallian before she died at his house. He said she was a hard-working woman.
“She wasn’t a street person,” Winch said. “She didn’t get involved with all types of things in the street. My child worked and took care of her son and went to school. Was in for nursing to better herself for her son, so for them to do that to her, I mean, and just walk away and wake up and just go about their day, that’s an evil person. They get to walk around free and do whatever they feel, and that’s not right. I want justice, and I don’t want them to ever walk the street again because I want to get my day in court where I can face them and let them know how I feel and what they took from me. My child was my all.”
She added her grandson deserves to know what happened to his mother.
“If you got a heart or anything, or anyone has a heart that knows anything, please say something because you’re just as guilty as the person or persons who did this,” she said. “And for me to know of a person, and I know the person is two different things. So I’m asking, and I’m pleading for the depth of my soul. Please say something because she doesn’t deserve this, and Kaiden deserves at least that closure.”
Anyone with information, call the Opelousas Police Department or St. Landry Parish Crime Stoppers at 337-948- TIPS, where you will remain anonymous.
