OPELOUSAS — Two years after Kiare Vallian was shot six times and killed—just one day before her 30th birthday—her family is still searching for answers. The people responsible remain free, and her mother is now speaking out, pleading for justice in a case that’s gone cold.
“I made peace with God—if he couldn't heal her on this side, to please heal her on the other,” said Vallian’s mother, Holly Winch. “She had suffered enough. When she left this earth, my baby looked like Emmett Till. Her tongue was twice its normal size. She didn’t even look like my child.”
Kiare was killed on Elementary Lane in Opelousas in January 2023. According to Opelousas Police, Vallian—who was studying to become a nurse—was sitting in her car, when someone in an unknown vehicle pulled up and began shooting.
No arrests have been made.
“They took something so precious from me,” Winch said. “My baby didn’t have a hateful bone in her body. She was humble. She did everything I asked of her.”
The pain of losing her daughter hasn’t faded for Winch. She says not a day goes by without longing to hear Kiare’s voice again.
“There are days I wish I could just call her,” she said. “I still wait for her car to pull into the driveway... but it never will. We talked every day. There wasn’t a moment where we weren’t together.”
Kiare left behind a young son named Kaiden. Now, her best friend Isahia Alexander is stepping in as a father figure.
“Seeing my little nephew grow up without his mom... it hurts,” Alexander said. “My heart breaks for Miss Holly.”
While Winch acknowledges that police are working multiple homicide cases across the city, she says what hurts most is the lack of communication from investigators.
“I get that there are other grieving mothers. But I’m one too. I am all my daughter has left. I’m her voice until the death of me.”
KATC has reached out to the Opelousas Police Department for an update on the investigation, including whether if any people have been identified. As of news time, we have not received a response.
