KAPLAN, La. (KLFY) — Kaplan Police Department deals with its first homicide since New Years’ Eve in 2020. This comes after Monday afternoon; police officers were called about a man identified as Christopher Vadallier, 32, being shot and lying on the porch.  

The shooting happened on Sammy Kershaw Drive. 

“Before that, I believe it was 15 years before they had a shooting. It’s not often we have a shooting in Kaplan,” said Kaplan Police Chief Joshua Hardy. “Small departments like Kaplan really deal with the majority of the complaints. It’s not like a bigger department where they have certain officers assigned to do certain things. Detectives with Kaplan handle everything, homicide, burglaries, rapes, and sexual assaults with children, so the majority of our complaints are drugs, burglaries here and there, not very often. Domestic fights.” 

He continues, “When a homicide happens, it’s not often that it happens, but the detectives are trained well enough to where they can switch into that mode, and they do a very excellent job at processing the scene.” 

Police responded to the call of a shooting, and when they arrived on the scene, the victim was lying on the porch. The chief said Acadian Ambulance was on the scene. He was picked up by them later. Once they arrived at the hospital, he passed away from the gunshot wound.

“From there, officers and detectives started searching for the suspect. We located her. She was identified by an eyewitness that saw the incident happen,” said Hardy. 

Police arrested LaQuiondra St. Julien, 23, who, according to an eyewitness, had run toward the McDonald’s area. She is charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. 

“Honestly, without the eyewitness, it would have been a little harder to identify who the suspect was, and her seeing it happened and in which direction the person ran helped out a lot in us locating where she was. We were also able to use that to go in that direction and find out where she was and get video surveillance of the area,” Hardy said. “She was a worker at McDonald’s, and she actually ran right back to McDonald’s, then next door to the gas station, and then returned back to work, where she later left with a ride. We stopped the vehicle, and that’s where we located her inside the vehicle.” 

He explained he was not sure what led up to the shooting but was informed she and Vadallier were feuding for “some reason we’re not sure.”

“We just want to ensure the public that anytime this happens, we work diligently to get this situation cleared and closed. Taking care of; get the person off the street so that way the people of Kaplan can feel safe,” he said. 

Hardy said St. Julien was booked into the Kaplan jail and is waiting to see a judge, then will be transported to the Vermilion Parish Jail. Her bond is set at $1,000,000.