Friends, family and law enforcement officials came in from the cold Saturday morning to share their grief, disbelief and recollections of 11-year-old Sarah Haley Foxwell, whose body was found in a wooded patch of northern Wicomico County on Christmas Day.
As about 1,600 people filed into Emmanuel Wesleyan Church, two projection screens flanking the stage showed pictures taken of the blond, blue-eyed Sarah "Haleybugs" from the time she was an infant. Sarah in a high chair, Sarah standing on the beach, drifting in a lime-green inner tube, joking around in a blond wig and sunglasses, blowing a giant pink gum bubble, posing with two other children in "speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil" poses.
"There was never a dull moment with Sarah," said her eldest sister, Debra McCune, 17, struggling to get through her remarks. "Now that she's gone, I wish I spent more time with her. If there was any way to changes places with her."
Jordyn Knierem, 11, who went to school with Sarah at Wicomico Middle School, said she and her friend were "inseparable. We could spend 24 hours together and not get bored. I see this as impossible. It proves you're not promised tomorrow."
Sarah's mother, Jennifer Foxwell, cried as she read a poem that compared the child to a budding flower taken away at the threshold of opening.
"I'll miss you, baby, and I love you, Haleybugs," her mother said.
Sarah was buried in a private family ceremony in Salisbury earlier in the week. One of seven children in a blended family, she had lived with her guardian, her aunt, Amy Fothergill, in a house just east of Salisbury.
The child d appeared from her home during the night of Tuesday, Dec. 22. Her family's report the next day of the missing child set off an expansive search by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that was joined by about 3,000 volunteers Christmas Day.
The girl's body was found late that afternoon in what Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis described as an area of heavy woods and dense brush near Melson Road, not far south of the Delaware line. Lewis has described her death as a murder and said Saturday that she died of "multiple causes" but did not elaborate.
Thomas J. Leggs, Jr., 30, has been charged with burglary and kidnapping in the girl's disappearance and is being held without bond at the Wicomico County Detention Center. No other charges have been filed, but Lewis said he expects that evidence will be presented to a grand jury this month.
"We have lots of work to do," Lewis said. "There are people who are coming forward every day" with information.
Leggs is a registered child sex offender in both Maryland and Delaware, stemming from convictions for crimes committed in 1998 and 2001. He is listed as a "high risk" sex offender in Delaware.
He briefly dated Sarah Foxwell's aunt and knew where the family kept a key hidden outside the house. Lewis said Leggs entered the home during the night and took the girl from her first-floor bedroom. A 6-year-old sister who was also in the room told police that Sarah left the room with a man she identified as "Tommy."
In all his years in law enforcement, Lewis said after the memorial service, "there's nothing that ever affected my soul like this case."
He struggled to make it through his prepared remarks during the service, held at Emmanuel Wesleyan, the largest church in town, in expectation of a large turnout. The family's pastor, the Rev. William L. Warren Jr. of Allen Memorial Baptist Church, presided at the service, which lasted a little over an hour.
In closing remarks, he talked about the "monstrous sadness" of the event. "You'll never get over it," he said, "but with God's help you'll get through it."
The question hanging over the proceedings, he said, was why?
"Why did God let this happen?" he asked. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand."