WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |Accident victim's picture used in possible scheme

Accident victim's picture used in possible scheme

By Tyana Williams - bio | email

HOLDEN, LA (WAFB) - Alyica Owens died when the car her friend was driving ran off the road and hit a tree.  Her mother says everyday is a struggle, but there's something making it harder to heal.  She says someone is carrying her daughter's picture, posing as her parents and asking for money.

Annette Owens smiles as she flips through a scrapbook of her daughter's life.  Sometimes lingering on one picture, sometimes touching a photograph.  Looking at the book has become a daily activity.  "I look at this everyday. Sometimes it may be all day long," said Owens.

Touching the book that captures her daughter's 13 years of life is the closest Annette will get to her daughter. "She's going to be gone a month Thursday," Annette says, wiping tears away.  "And then her birthday is two days later.  She would have been 14.  And she told us, my birthday has to be grand because I'm going to be 14 on the 14th, and that never happens."

Almost one month ago, Owens daughter was pinned inside a car that hit a tree on La 441, in Holden.  It took paramedics an hour to cut Alyica out.  But she didn't survive.

Now Alyica's mother says someone else is taking her life again.  She says three days after her daughter died, family members were approached by someone trying to collect money.

"A young couple they had started in the Walker area. Had a picture of our daughter going to convenience store parking lots, posing as her parents trying to collect money to pay for her funeral expenses."  Owens says her family never asked for cash donations. 

But Friday, it happened again.  This time to her husband, in Port Allen. While he was wearing a button with Alyica's picture on it.

"And the guy says there's been a young couple, male and female that have been hanging around in Port Allen area.  Posing as her parents trying to collect money."

Holding a framed picture of her little girl, Owens says, "And to think that these individuals are out there trying to collect money off our baby. Its wrong."

Owens says until the people are caught, she feels her daughter can't truly rest in peace.

The Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office is looking into the money scheme.  They say if the people are caught they will be charged with theft by fraud.

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