Candlelight vigil held in memory of Mitrice Richardson

Outside the mortuary chapel at the Inglewood Park Cemetery, Lauren Sutton held a single sunflower.

"It's her favorite flower," she said of Mitrice Richardson, the young woman whose remains lay in a rose-bedecked coffin inside the chapel. Sutton, the sister-in-law of Richardson's mother, added, "They're so bright and sunny, and that was so her."

On Friday, friends, family and well-wishers came to Inglewood to pay their respects to Richardson -- who had been missing for nearly a year before her remains were discovered Aug. 9 in a ravine in Malibu Canyon.

"Even though we are here to say goodbye to her," Sutton said, "we are asking the community to help us seek justice for her."

Richardson's September 2009 disappearance after being released from a Los Angeles County sheriff's station at night without a car or phone triggered public outrage and two negligence lawsuits.

But Friday's events were mostly a chance for people to remember the Cal State Fullerton graduate who would have turned 25 in April.

Read the full story here.

-- Carla Hall

Photo: Latrice Sutton, left, mother of Mitrice Richardson, holds a candle for her daughter at a vigil in Inglewood. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Cooler heads]

May she Rest In Peace. For the legal and emotional turmoil to come, may the Richardson family find strength and resolve to bring Justice and bless them all for some sense of closure. May Goodness and Mercy follow the entire family all the days of their lives.