Family finds closure after body of 20-year-old woman found in river

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The sky filled with red and black balloons, a sign of love for 20-year-old Jameshia Selders, whose body was found in the river in Laplace one week after she jumped near the canal street ferry terminal in New Orleans.

Her family says while the pain is still there knowing she is no longer alive, they are thankful to have her body to give her a proper funeral.

“It’s a relief to have her body found so that we can have that complete closure. We’re still mourning the loss but it’s a relief that the body was found. That was our main concern,” Selders’ cousin Victorian Williams said.

The family says since last week they have spoken to a New Orleans Police Department detective who showed them surveillance video of Selders jumping into the river herself, evidence that she was not harmed by anyone else at the time.

“My aunt was receiving a lot of phone calls with misleading information so she went off that. A grieving mother looking for answers, you know?” Selders’ godmother Jkia Duplessis said.

While the family is happy to have her body back, one question remains: how did she end up upriver?

The family has been given no conclusive answers. However, the family considers it a miracle.

“If she would’ve gone down past Plaquemines into way down there to the end of the world where we call it….” Williams said.

“I think it was nobody but god that sent her up north,” Duplessis said.

Despite the questions, the family says all they care to do now is honor who she was, a smiling, caring person who always had a story to tell.

“She always was that rainbow in the sky,” Williams said.

“She loved to dance since a little bity girl; not just something that happened over night. Ever since a little bitty girl, she was just that person,” Duplessis said.

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