Family and friends of the 15-year-old blind girl found dead in central B.C. this weekend say she knew the man accused of murdering her.
The body of Loren Donn Leslie was found at the side of an abandoned logging road north of Vanderhoof on Saturday night. Twenty-year-old Cody Alan Legebokoff has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.
Loren's father Doug Leslie says that he was told his daughter planned to go for a drive with Legebokoff the day she was killed.
"She was an acquaintance somehow -- I don't know," he told CTV News.
Legebokoff was stopped by police on suspicion of poaching as he drove his pickup truck out of the snow-covered road where Loren's body was dumped.
If there's any comfort for her family, it's that police had a suspect in custody before the murder was even discovered.
"I give them so much credit," Leslie said.
Loren's family and friends remembered her Tuesday as a sweet girl who was always ready to help others.
"She was an angel and she still is, and she touched a lot of people," her father said.
Her mother Donna was overcome with tears remembering Loren.
"She cared so much about everybody else, and I don't know why somebody would do this to her. I've lost her and the world has lost her," she said.
While planning a service for Loren, she asked funeral director Val Haas to read from the teen's journal.
"I hear the loneliness of people sitting in folding chairs at dances because they're not loud enough to be heard, but I hear them," Loren wrote in an entry.
Her schoolmates described her as quiet, but not afraid to speak up.
"That was her only thing. She always wanted people to be treated fairly and with respect," Bobbi Devauld said.
"She was about peace, love," Tori Lodge said.
Loren was legally blind, with about 50-per-cent vision in one eye and none in the other.
Police are not releasing the cause of her death. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday in Kamloops.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Kent Molgat
