FORT WAYNE – Her freckles were abundant. Her blond hair reached just past her shoulders.
She loved My Little Pony dolls. The same went for drawing, dressing up and listening to music.
She was energetic. She loved to run.
This little girl, Aliahna Lemmon, was remembered Thursday evening during a public memorial service at First Assembly of God on West Washington Center Road.
An overpowering sadness filled the church as mourners tried to cope with the fact that Aliahna is gone, the 9-year-old victim of a gruesome killing that has stunned the region and captured national attention.
Chris Parks, 47, was one of several hundred people in attendance. Parks, a member of the church, said she works in the kitchen at Holland Elementary, where Aliahna was in the third grade.
"It's been really hard for everyone that works there," she said. "She was such a good girl. She was so sweet."
The church presented a slideshow, with photo after photo of Aliahna smiling. Flower arrangements, stuffed animals and a framed photo of her with braided hair sat at the foot of the church's stage.
"We often wonder in times like these, 'Where's God?' " Pastor Barry Jorris told the crowd. "God is still here and with us."
Moments of praying, singing and hand-holding punctuated the service that was attended by parents and children, by Aliahna's family and friends and by members of the Allen County Sheriff's Department.
In a homily, Pastor Joe Hines from Auburn Church of Christ remembered Aliahna as a girl with wide-open eyes who enjoyed church. "She skipped, and she laughed, and she loved her family very, very dearly," he said.
Before the 7 p.m. service, Aliahna's mother, Tarah Souders, declined to talk extensively because of the ongoing investigation into her daughter's death.
"I'm having a hard time coming to words for a lot of things," she said. "I just miss her a lot."
Michael Plumadore, a family friend who was baby-sitting Aliahna, has admitted to killing her Dec. 22 outside his home in the Northway mobile home park, just north of Fort Wayne, and later dismembering her body, according to court papers.
Aliahna was reported missing Dec. 23. After authorities conducted an exhaustive search for her, Plumadore led investigators to her remains on Dec. 26.
Plumadore, 39, is charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and moving a body from the scene of a suspicious or violent death. He entered pleas of not guilty to the charges Wednesday in Allen Superior Court.
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