The family of Kori Gauthier, the LSU student from Opelousas who disappeared on Wednesday, held a prayer service for her in Mississippi River Street on Friday night.
Gauthier, 19, disappeared before 1 a.m. Wednesday. Her abandoned car was hit by a motorist on the Mississippi River bridge.
At Friday’s service, a large group of LSU students signed a council of thoughts and prayers for Kori.
The family of Kori Gauthier, the LSU student from Opelousas who disappeared on Wednesday, held a prayer service for her in Mississippi River Street on Friday night.
“It’s easier during the day than at night, but it’s always in the back of your head, like, is she hurt?” Taylor Gauthier, 20, told her older sister at the service. “When you’re really close to people, you feel things, and I do not feel that she’s hurt. But that’s the concern of where she is.”
The search for a missing Opelousas woman attending LSU in Baton Rouge increased on Friday, with members of the United Cajun Navy joining the family …
Taylor said she lives about five minutes from Kori’s dormitory. She said if anything was wrong, Kori would have called her.
Gauthier’s family was standing in the middle of a student circle when one of the family members led a prayer for her. The students started singing gospel songs as the sun set behind them.
Ronald Riggs, a first-year student at LSU, is friends with Kori and is best friends with her brother. He said he had been on the street since 1pm and handed out leaflets in LSU’s student association and near Kirby Smith Hall, Kori’s dormitory.
Friends, family and loved ones gather for a night vigil for the missing LSU student Kori Gauthier (19), Friday, April 9, 2021, along the Mississippi Rive …
Gauthier’s family started looking for her when they learned that she did not show up for class, work, doctor’s appointment or dormitory on Wednesday. They tracked down her cell phone to a Baton Rouge salvage site, where they found her entire car.
Some members of Gauthier’s family criticized BRPD for not informing them more quickly about the wreck or the fact that she was missing.
Local police and volunteers with the United Cajun Navy combed the area Thursday to try to locate Gauthier.