A six-year-old girl named Ryliee Watson was critically wounded in a shooting at Debaillon Park in Lafayette on August 24, 2025, during a balloon release held to honor her late uncle. Ryliee was an innocent bystander and was taken to a Baton Rouge hospital, where she remained on life support in critical condition for two weeks before dying in September 2025. Her mother remembered her as a little butterfly who loved gymnastics and described the pain of watching her daughter on a ventilator, unable to breathe on her own.

The Lafayette Police Department announced upgrades to charges related to the park shooting; four people were named in those charging actions as Daylon Andrus, Kimmy Ray Dauntain Jr. Ja’Andrea, and Rickey Chaney, and another individual, Carlos Heard, was also reportedly charged in connection with the case. The community rallied around Ryliee’s family after the shooting.

If anyone attended the balloon release at Debaillon Park or has information about the shooting, please share what you know with investigators.