- April 26, 2024
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Kaleigh and Mozella weren’t twins. But the sisters were so inseparable that they didn’t mind it when people called them twins.
Both girls, ages 12 and 13, were killed April 17 in a car crash, as was their mother, Wilma Williams. A fourth person, Thomas Patrick Riley, 62, drove the opposing vehicle and was also killed in the crash, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The visit to San Mateo was designed to help Mozella, a seventh grader at Indian Trails Middle School, with a school assignment. On April 17, Williams brought her daughters to visit a family friend there; the fiery crash occurred west of Palm Coast on State Road 100 on their way home.
The fact that their trip was based on schoolwork is indicative of the value of education in the Williams home, according to Williams’ cousin, Reesie Holsey, of San Mateo. Williams always encouraged her daughters to excel in school, and it worked: They were both A students, even during the current virtual school setup.
They drove to San Mateo to visit their teacher friend because “Wilma wasn’t going to allow a pandemic to keep them from getting their work done,” Holsey said.
Williams, who is survived by her husband, Louis, and four older children between them, was the youth group leader at the Second Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in San Mateo, where Mozella and Kaleigh were also praise dancers.
“We called them our TikTok girls,” Holsey said, referring to the video-clip social network, “because we could be in a room full of family, and they would be in a corner doing a TikTok dance. They loved to dance and praise dance for Christ.”
No plans have been finalized for a memorial fund or service, but the family has requested prayers of support.
“We know as a family that a lot of people are hurting, and we can’t thank everybody enough for the calls, the texts, the Facebook posts, the love that everyone from Palm Coast to Palatka and San Mateo has shown our family,” she said.
Among the Facebook posts welcomed by the family was one by Abbey Cooke, a teacher at Belle Terre Elementary School. She was Kaleigh’s teacher and supervised Mozella in the Ambassadors program. Her daughter was also close friends with Mozella.
Cooke praised Williams as one of her best parents of students.
“She loved her girls hard, supported them hard, and expected them to live up to all of their potential,” Cooke wrote. “ … She expected the best from them because she knew that is what they were capable of.
She remembered Mozella as someone with “the heart of an angel and a smile that lit up a room.” Mozella and Cooke’s daughter used to talk about how they were “so annoyed at the kids misbehaving in class. It was like they had some kind of ‘good kid’ club.”
“I mourn what she is, was, and could have been.”
ABBEY COOKE, Kaleigh's teacher
Cooke said she loved Kaleigh’s “quiet silliness, her empathy, her ridiculously funny TikTok dances, her amazing work ethic, her stellar fashion sense, her bravery when she stood on a chair and sang Bruno Mars to the whole class, her artistic ability, and her all out love for life.”
As a teacher, Cooke also said she is concerned about the rest of the students who are grieving for one of their own.
“I hope that from this they learn that life is so very fragile and to never take a single moment for granted,” she wrote, adding that it is particularly hard to deal with the grief considering everyone is isolated due to the pandemic.
“The worst thing about all of this is that I am not able to be with them,” Cooke wrote. “I just want to hug every single one of them and tell them that it is ok and that I am sorry they have to experience this. I want to tell them that I love them and will be here for them when they need me.”
Wilma Williams’ family members shared Cooke’s post and thanked her for sharing her memories. Faith Lyons wrote: “Abbey Cooke, Thank you for this. Me and my dad will need memories like this.”
“We’re just trying to navigate a situation that has really just devastated us,” Holsey said. “We’re trying to navigate it the best that we can."
