Halloween came early for some in the Cedar Valley as Angels Memorial Park in Evansdale welcomed guests for a safety day on Saturday afternoon.
It featured trick or treating, free food, a Kids Zone and face painting stations. They went through over 300 pounds of candy. Event board member Dona Klein estimated between 1500 and 2000 people showed up at Angels Park.
Angels Park at Meyer’s Lake in Evansdale serves as a lasting tribute and memorial to Lyric Cook-Morrisey and Elizabeth Collins. Angels Park also honors three other Iowa female murder victims: 22-year-old Lindsay Marie Nichols, 13-year-old Donnisha Hill and 5-year-old Evelyn Miller.
Local law enforcement, including the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, was on hand. They gave out fingerprint and DNA kits for parents to use on their kids in the event the unimaginable happens.
“We hope that nobody ever has to use them. But if they do, they’ve got it so they can give that to law enforcement ASAP, and then they can help look for their children too,” Klein said. “With Lyric and Elizabeth, no one would have ever imagined what happened in our community, but it did.”
The event was spurred by cousins Lyric and Elizabeth. The Evansdale cousins had been on a bike ride on July 13, 2012. Authorities discovered their bikes and some personal belongings at Meyers Lake in Evansdale.
Hundreds turned out to search for the girls but came up with nothing. 145 days later, hunters found the bodies of Lyric and Elizabeth twenty miles north of Evansdale at the 7 Bridges Wildlife area in Bremer County.
“I’m sure they’re here today. They would love that all this is going on here and they are with us,” Klein said. “When anybody is working over here. You feel the peace, and it feels good working over here because you know you’re here for the right reasons. We feel the presence of the girls.”
It remains a haunting and horrifying unsolved criminal case, with no arrests ever having been made.
Read the full story at KWWL.