A candlelight vigil will be held on Sunday to mark the one year anniversary of the brutal murder of a seven-year-old Canton girl.
Canton Elementary School student Jorelys Rivera was abducted and killed by maintenance worker Ryan Brunn in her apartment complex on Dec. 2, 2011. Brunn pleaded guilty to the murder and hanged himself in his jail cell shortly after receiving a life sentence for the crime.
The vigil, however, will focus on the memory of Jorelys as a happy, loving young girl with the world at her feet.
“The theme is going to be a celebration of life,” Bianca Cummings, local child safety advocate and organizer of the vigil said to The Marietta Daily Journal.
According to Cummings, Jorelys' mother Joselinne Rivera-Ruiz asked her to prepare the event and has created a slide show of photographs of her daughter accompanied by Jorelys' favorite songs.
The vigil will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the G. Cecil Pruett Community Center Family YMCA, where Cherokee children are taught how to defend themselves in the radKIDS program.