Martha Odom, a 17-year-old senior at Ascension Episcopal School, died after being caught in the crossfire of a shooting Thursday at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. She was there with friends for senior skip day, with graduation only weeks away.
Police said the shooting began when two groups started arguing and drew guns. Odom died from one gunshot wound to the chest, according to the coroner’s office.
Her death hit a school community that had already seen other students pulled into the violence. Two other Ascension Episcopal students were shot and were recovering from injuries on Friday, and two more were at the mall during the shooting but were not hurt. Another victim, Donnie Guillory, remained in critical condition Friday.
Friday morning, Odom’s name became public, and police announced the arrest of Markel Lee, also 17, who was booked with first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and illegal use of a weapon. Police also released a photo of another suspect they believe was involved.
Odom had spent her final months of high school filling roles that made her hard to miss. She was captain of the girls’ soccer team, editor of the student newspaper and a teacher at her dance studio. She also won first place in the Lafayette Public Library’s Writes of Spring contest last year and second place this year.
Friends and teachers remembered her as someone who seemed to move through school life with uncommon ease. Ascension Episcopal said classmates, faculty and Blue Gator families remembered her as “a joyful presence whose kindness and infectious enthusiasm brought light to all who knew her.” Ali Mejia, 15, who dances at The Ballet Studio, said Odom was kind and always smiling, and that if anyone was having a bad day, she was there for them even if she did not know them well.
The arts were central to her life. Odom planned to attend Sewanee, also known as the University of the South, where she intended to study English and creative writing. She was going to spend her summer before college at Ballet Austin’s summer intensive, after dancing with The Ballet Studio and Lafayette Ballet Theatre. She also frequently appeared in school plays and musicals, and in a spring break write-up about a family trip to New York City, she said she had the time of my life eating at Raising Cane’s in Times Square, attending Easter services at The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, going to a New York Rangers game and seeing several Broadway shows.
For classmates, the grief turned quickly into ritual. On Friday, they held a prayer service and left flower bouquets in Odom’s parking spot. The shooting left her final weeks of high school marked not by graduation plans, but by a school and family community trying to make sense of how a senior day outing became a fatal encounter.
What happens next is now in the hands of investigators and prosecutors as they pursue the second suspect and build the case against Lee, while Odom’s school and family face the loss of a teenager who had already lined up her next chapter.
