Family Members, Students Mourn 13-Year-Old Girl

Tears are nothing new to Desert View Middle School this year.

Cassaundra Holt caused people to cry because they couldn’t stop laughing at her antics and she joked around with her fellow students in the hallway.

On Tuesday, she brought both tears and laughs one last time.

Holt was murdered last week along with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. On Tuesday, pictures and videos of Cassaundra dancing alongside family and friends were shown during a memorial allowing hundreds of students to say goodbye.

Cassaundra’s antics displayed on a large screen for all to see caused tears to stream from young children’s faces, only for them to burst into laughter at the sight of her dancing to popular songs moments later.

Raymond Holt, Cassaundra’s father, was in attendance of Tuesday’s memorial service.

Holt showed a whirlwind of emotions; at one point standing up and laughing at one of the girls who was dancing in a video with his daughter. Moments later he was keeled over crying and yelling, “She was too young. Oh Lord, please help me.”

Holt’s reaction amplified the feelings hundreds of confused students who felt the same confusion Cassaundra’s father is. Students described Cassaundra as a likable girl who couldn’t help herself from opening up to everyone. She laughed with everyone and seemed to liven the hallways of Desert Middle School.

“The first day of school she would walk up to people and say, ‘Oh, you’re my seven now. You have to hang out with me from now on,” said Aaliyah Evans, who admits she knew little of Cassaundra but would regularly see her and talk in the hallways. “We would never see her without a smile on her face.”

Cassaundra’s father stood and spoke to the crowd with a hand over his face. Between tears he managed to tell the children that his daughter was his best friend, and that he’d miss her sorely. He also warned them not to take things for granted.

Desert View Principal Michell Kehrwald said Cassaundra was a rare student, one that not only spoke, but listened. Kehrwald said family and friends would never understand why the teen died so young, but hoped they could learn something in her absence.

“Cassaundra was so kind to everybody, and I think that is what we have to take from this,” said Kehrwald. “Her kindness, and how she always was passing that kindness on.”