{"id":127343,"date":"2026-01-22T03:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127343\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T03:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:22:10","slug":"family-mourns-victim-killed-in-leon-county-valdosta-string-of-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127343\/","title":{"rendered":"Family mourns victim killed in Leon County, Valdosta string of murders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Days after a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/01\/17\/lcso-man-arrested-killing-two-women-leon-county-also-charged-valdosta-homicide\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/01\/17\/lcso-man-arrested-killing-two-women-leon-county-also-charged-valdosta-homicide\/\"> triple murder arrest<\/a> that shook both Tallahassee and Valdosta, the heartbroken family of one of the victims is mourning the loss of their loved one. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The oldest daughter of Otica Williams, Zyann Cromartie, is struggling to understand why her mother is dead. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She said she is still in shock about what happened to her mom, and she\u2019s trying to be strong for her siblings. Cromartie has three siblings in total, and her youngest brother is just 11 years old. Cromartie also said her mother was pregnant at the time of her death. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Cromartie spoke highly of her mother. She shared how caring and loving she was, and the heartbreaking call she received at work with the life-altering news. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhen I got the news, I didn\u2019t want to believe it,\u201d she said. \u201cI was hurt cause I literally just talked to her that Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Now, Cromartie is left with only the memories of the mom Otica was to her and her siblings. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt felt like I been shot right now. I\u2019m living with half of a heart,\u201d she said. \u201dYour kids need you. She was my biggest support.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Cromartie is handling most of her mom\u2019s funeral arrangements and said her family needs a lot of help to make it happen. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A GoFundMe has been created to assist the family with funeral expenses. To donate, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/help-lay-our-loving-otica-williams-to-rest?attribution_id=sl:338f6fae-ac4b-452b-9474-d254a6ecb8e4&amp;ts=1769014825&amp;utm_campaign=natman_sharesheet_dash&amp;utm_medium=customer&amp;utm_source=sms\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/help-lay-our-loving-otica-williams-to-rest?attribution_id=sl:338f6fae-ac4b-452b-9474-d254a6ecb8e4&amp;ts=1769014825&amp;utm_campaign=natman_sharesheet_dash&amp;utm_medium=customer&amp;utm_source=sms\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/01\/21\/living-with-half-heart-family-mourns-victim-killed-leon-county-valdosta-string-murders\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Days after a triple murder arrest that shook both Tallahassee and Valdosta, the heartbroken&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[265,10520,1089,61038,24461,1136,1289,26223,1933,63018,232,234,233,63019],"class_list":["post-127343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-crime","tag-expenses","tag-family","tag-flay-rollins","tag-funeral","tag-gofundme","tag-leon-county","tag-mourning","tag-murder","tag-otica-williams","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-zyann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}