A University student died yesterday from unknown causes in what her mother called an “unexpected tragedy.”
Kelli Williams, a 22-year-old elementary education major, collapsed as she was walking through a parking lot near the campus tennis courts.
LSUPD Maj. Ricky Adams said officers responded to a medical call at the tennis court parking lot near the Carl Maddox Field House yesterday afternoon.
While Adams could not confirm the student’s name at press time, Williams’ mother, Darlene Williams, confirmed that it was her daughter who collapsed in the parking lot.
Adams said a bystander began performing first aid at the scene and an ambulance took the student to Baton Rouge General Mid-City Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Darlene Williams said her daughter had no previous heath problems.
Laura Naihaus, an elementary education junior, had been friends with Kelli Williams since they were in the seventh grade.
Naihaus said Kelli Williams had talked to her boyfriend of three years just moments before collapsing in the parking lot.
She said Williams told her boyfriend she was going to eat and then do some school work and that she had not complained of any health problems.
“She loved her boyfriend, and she loved her friends,” Naihaus said.
Naihaus said Williams did not smoke and rarely drank alcohol, and on the weekends she preferred to hang out with her close friends rather than going out to bars.
Her mother’s description was similar.
“She didn’t get involved in all the bad things,” Darlene Williams said about her daughter.
Kelli Williams was from Slidell, and friends and family described her as a generous, outgoing, caring and loving person who dreamed of marriage and a family.
Darlene Williams described her daughter as a unique and outgoing person.
“She wasn’t a joiner,” Williams’ mother said. “She had a lot of friends and was always well-liked.”
Her mother also said Kelli Williams loved children and looked forward to having her own one day.
“She wanted to be a homemaker,” Darlene Williams said.
Darlene Williams also said her daughter was “an extremely good person,” and that her friends “called her an angel.”
Naihaus said that when she worked at a bar one summer, Kelli Williams came every day to sit with her to make sure “strange men” did not bother her.
“She was the best person I ever met,” Naihaus said. “She was there for me when I needed her. She was there for everyone.”
Casey Wiley, a mass communication senior and longtime friend of Kelli Williams, said the two arranged to live next door to each other in Miller their freshmen year. Wiley smiled as she reminisced over Kelli Williams’ ability to eat anything — including her favorite snack, peanut butter out of a jar — but still stay skinny without exercising.
“She imagined her life perfect,” Wiley said. “You knew it would be because she was perfect.”