NEW ORLEANS — Three children were remembered Friday after they died after falling into the Mississippi River. Brandy and Ally Wilson and Kevin Poole were swept away in the river's current two years ago. The family says Ally's body has never been recovered.
Friday, a month shy of the day the incident happened, the family unveiled a new marker in the children's memory. The white stone marker sits atop the levee, overlooking the Mississippi River that snatched three young souls.
14-year-old Brandy Wilson, her younger sister, eight-year-old Ally Wilson and Brandy's 15-year-old boyfriend Kevin Poole were at the park near the Crescent City Connection Bridge. Brandy slipped on a piling near the water's edge and fell into the Mississippi River, her boyfriend and sister tried to help her but they too were pulled down by the current. Brandy and Kevin's bodies were later recovered but Ally's body has never been found.
The girl's mother Octavia Wilson told WWL Louisiana, "It still feels like it just happened, I can go on having a normal day, and when I think about them I just break down and cry."
"It's a pain that will never end," she said.
Wilson said, "I have to look in my front room and see that empty urn. Brandy is in there, but hers [meaning Ally's urn] is empty, and I never know if they're going to recover her body."
The family is now able to remember and celebrate their children with a new memorial here in Algiers. Wilson said, "Just to know that I have a spot, my whole family will have a spot to come. If we want to talk to them."
Wilson lost her two girls that fatal day, "I see mothers with their daughters and stuff like that, just knowing I don't have mine, it hurts." She said every day for the last two years has been painful.
"Brandy loved to sing, she was in the choir, I pull up all kinds of songs that I know she would love to listen to. And Ally, was just outgoing. Ally was the life of every party, she had an awesome spirit."
Wilson is the matriarch of the family, her strength comes from those she's left protecting. "I have five boys at home to be strong and support and smile for."
Children who will help carry the memory of those lost on that fateful day.
NOPD says they have no new information on the whereabouts of Ally Wilson's body.