By Seamus McGraw
(Continued)
Until the end, they believed Deidre would find her way home
For five long months, the family and her closes friends prayed and believed that she would return home. As late as September, a candle light vigil was held for her, said Theresa Ortseid, mother to one of Deidre's closest friends and almost a surrogate mother to the young woman herself. Even then, though they believed that something terrible had happened to Deidre, they continued to believe that she would survive it.
"We knew something bad happened but we thought it was fixable," Ortseid said. "We thought of all kinds of awful things, but we thought we could fix any of them. We just thought one day she'd be back here."
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Deidre Harm with friends |
Last Monday, as hunters stalked through the woods outside of Wisconsin Rapids, they stumbled across a collection of skeletal remains, and immediately contacted authorities. The remains were collected and sent to a state forensic lab, and on Friday, authorities announced that they had positively identified them as Deidre's.
Wisconsin Rapids Police and the Wood County Sheriff's Department declined Monday to say whether any other evidence had been collected at the scene that might shed light on the circumstances of Deidre's death. Nor was it clear when a forensic examination of Deidre's remains would be completed.
"I do not have a time line on that," Wisconsin Rapids Police Chief Kurt Heuer said, adding that the joint state, county and local investigation is continuing.
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