Everyone could see who Cameran Holt was from an early age.

Even when she was a toddler, Holt was headstrong and opinionated. She was responsible and nurturing. It wasn’t unusual to find her petting cats or brushing her dolls’ hair, just making sure they were in tip-top shape.

The second of five children, she always stepped up to help her younger siblings. She loved being around kids, especially her little cousins, and dreamed of becoming a mother. That’s why Oct. 26 was such a great day — she’d just attended her younger sister’s gender reveal party and found out she’d soon welcome another nephew to the family.

Holt continued the celebrations afterward with her older sister and a friend. In the early morning hours of Oct. 27, the girls were sitting in Holt’s car on West Hamburg Street when people nearby began to argue, witnesses said. Then a barrage of gunshots rang out. Holt, of Pasadena, was struck by a stray bullet that went through her brain stem, paralyzing her and putting her on life support. She succumbed to her injuries on Nov. 7.

Police are still looking for the gunman and any information related to the case. A 28-year-old man was also shot.

Holt was born on May 4, 2005, at 4:55 p.m., to Roxanne Spath and Jonathan Holt. She and her mother would often joke about the timing of her arrival — if she’d been born a day and five minutes later, she would have been born on 5/5/05 at 5 p.m. Spath named her after the reality TV star Cameran Eubanks, who Spath believed was strong and had good morals. Her daughter was the same way.

Holt was levelheaded and reliable, far wiser than her years and more mature than her age would suggest, her family said. She worked several jobs to save up enough money to buy herself a car and pay for her own driver’s education and car insurance.

When her parents split up, she “just became the second mom of the house,” Spath said. “She would do anything and everything” for her four siblings — her older sister, Destiny, and her younger siblings, Kendal, Aubrey and Tyler.

When Destiny had a baby in Florida last year, Holt and her mother jumped in the car and drove down to her. They laughed much of the way there — “she was heavy on the foot,” Spath said, and got them to Florida very quickly. She just wanted to meet her nephew.

Holt’s compassion extended to animals. Her first pets were hamsters, and she also grew up with cats. As she got older, the circle grew to a horse, a squirrel and a few dogs. Holt was devastated after the family had to put down one of their dogs in 2020. That’s when she got Rein, her emotional support dog and best friend, who helped pull her out of a depression, her mother said. Every day, Holt would take Rein hiking at Downs Park or walking around the neighborhood.

Holt once thought she would become a veterinarian, but she couldn’t bear the thought of putting down animals. Still, she wanted to help others and bring meaning to her life. She decided to work with children with developmental disabilities, and two weeks before she was shot, she’d earned her Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) certification, her mother said.

“She was the person that would take the shirt off of her back if you needed it,” Spath said.

Holt was also a foodie, said her aunt, Amanda Fields, and they spent many days trying new restaurants together. Holt enjoyed takeout from Subway, Chipotle and McDonald’s, and she loved shrimp alfredo, too. But nothing quite matched up to Mom’s meatloaf.

Family was important to Holt, and she’d be the first to call out someone who skipped a family event, her aunt said. Holt’s family traveled every summer to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, where they would relax on the beach, listen to music (R&B and hip-hop were Holt’s favorites) and play puzzles.

Holt had a “huge personality” and was “super sassy,” Fields said. She was down for any kind of adventure — horse riding, tubing, crabbing, camping, cliff jumping. In her own time, she also enjoyed drawing.

“She was responsible, but she was so carefree, and she wanted to have fun in life,” Fields said.

She had many friends, especially those she gained through cheerleading, Spath said. Together, they watched “Pretty Little Liars,” and Holt would take to task anyone who went ahead and watched episodes she hadn’t seen yet.

In the end, Holt could only mouth words or speak in a faint voice. Even in the worst times, her character never faltered. She told the nurses “please” and “thank you,” her mother said.

“There’s my pretty princess,” Holt mouthed when her little cousin came to visit, Fields said. And then Holt started teasing her and telling her that she stunk.

Holt held on long enough to donate her organs. A 62-year-old man received her “big heart,” her mother said, and her liver went to a 52-year-old man. Her left kidney helped a 45-year-old man, and her right kidney helped a 19-year-old woman.

Her legacy lives on through them. It lives on in Pasadena, where community members have shown her family endless support, Spath said.

And it will live on through her soon-to-arrive nephew, Bryson Cameran Jones.

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