NEW ORLEANS — Kimberly Gentry still has the prom dress her daughter wore as a high school senior.
“I got it made for her but she kind of went with the design,” said Gentry, holding up a silver dress.
It was a time of celebration. Gentry says her daughter was looking forward to the future, but a year and a half later, Paige Torregano, 19, was killed in a double shooting, not far from her New Orleans East home.
“Someone called and said the car Paige was in got shot up,” said Gentry.
It happened back in September outside a tire shop on Chef Menteur Highway in the Plum Orchard neighborhood. Gentry says her daughter was getting a tire fixed with a friend. That’s when police say several men opened fire.
“My 15-year-old daughter called and said, ‘Mom, don’t come here. They have yellow tape everywhere,’” said Gentry.
Gentry says Torregano was still in the car when she got there but police wouldn’t let her see her Paige.
“They asked me whether she had a butterfly tattoo on the side of her leg. I was like, ‘Yeah.’ They was like, ‘That’s her,’” said Gentry.
Torregano died at the scene. Her friend was shot in the head but survived. She’s the niece of city councilman Oliver Thomas
“From everything we know, and we’ve heard, it was targeted. It was a hit. It wasn’t her car, but they still targeted her,” said Thomas in the aftermath of the shooting.
Not knowing who “they” are is the hardest part for Gentry and her family.
“Every day I’m scared because I don’t know. I don’t know if the person next to me in the grocery store is the person or the gas station. It’s hard,” said Gentry. “I live my life every day in fear because I don’t know.”
Gentry also doesn’t know much about the investigation. To this day she still doesn’t know how many times her daughter was shot.
“I never went and got the autopsy because I don’t want to read it,” said Gentry. “The autopsy will tell me, but I just never went to get it because I don’t want to read it. It’s hard.”
So are the holidays. They’re the first ones without Gentry’s picky eater around.
“It just was hard during the holidays when I’m just cooking and she’s not here to say, ‘I don’t eat that, fix me something else.’ It’s hard,” said Gentry.
Paige was the second oldest of five kids. She was really close with her younger sister D’Kire Young.
“We just did everything together,” said Young.
They had a tight bond. The simple things meant the most.
“She’d take me with her to get something to eat. She’d want me to just come lay in the bed with her and watch movies. She always did my hair, like every week,” said Young.
Torregano was in cosmetology school. She loved makeup and wanted her own business.
“She was like this tomboy girly-girl. She didn’t wear heels, but she would wear tennis shoes, but she kept her makeup done and her hair done, but with the tennis shoes, not the heels,” said Gentry.
Gentry has now moved her family out of the city and even made space for Paige.
“This is her closet. I have her stuff in bins. Her purses, her shoes,” said Gentry as she points inside a closet in the family’s living room.
When back in the city and around the tire shop, Gentry relives that day.
“When I go, I see the car. Even though it’s not there, I see it. I see it,” said Gentry.
Almost eight months after losing her daughter, Gentry hasn’t lost hope
“I’m not going to stop fighting until I get justice. She was an innocent little girl, and they just stole her life away,” said Gentry.
Paige’s mom is now working to create a network of moms who’ve lost children to violent crime in hopes of supporting each other and bringing more awareness to violence.
There’s a $5,000 Crimestoppers reward in this case. You can reach Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.
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