A North Bay family is mourning the loss of their young daughter.
Twenty-three-year-old Mariah Coogan was killed on Monday when the small plane she was on crashed in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Her family spoke exclusively to KRON4 from the family’s business in Guerneville.
Her family says they are still in shock. Mariah leaves behind her parents and her four younger siblings.
They have a huge family here, and they tell KRON4 they are leaning on each other to get through this tough time.
Mariah Sunshine Coogan is remembered for living up to her middle name.
“When she walked into a room, she just lit it, lit the whole room up,” Mariah’s father Chris Coogan said. “She’s just a good spirit. I can’t explain it. The light of my life, light of our lives.”
“You know as a child, you have a mother-daughter relationship, and then they get to be an adult child,” mother Stacy Coogan said. “…And it was such a beautiful relationship between us. It was a whole new relationship, and I feel robbed. I feel so robbed”
The 23-year-old recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue modeling full-time.
On Monday night, she and five others left a golf tournament in Scottsdale and were headed to Las Vegas.
But the plane crashed soon after take off.
“When you get the call that confirms it, and you have to describe your child to somebody, and then you have to send them the X-rays of their teeth, it’s indescribable,” Stacy said.
Coogan is the oldest of five siblings.
The youngest of which is 10 years old.
“Watching her with her brothers and sisters, they are not just little children they were babysitting anymore,” Stacy said. “They’re becoming her friends, and that was beautiful.”
Her family says she loved animals and rode horses competitively until she had a fall at 18 that scared her so much, she moved to modeling full-time.
“She started riding at 7,” Stacy said. “She would run around the house with her friends. They would make jumps, jumping everywhere like they were horses. And she just really took off.”
Mariah’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for a foundation that helps take care of animals.