By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A vigil is set for the still missing-Kayla Croft-Payne on Thursday evening, the one year anniversary of the Lewis County teenager’s disappearance.
Croft-Payne was 18 years old and living in a trailer between Chehalis and Napavine on April 28, 2010 when she last logged onto her MySpace internet account. She was reported missing on May 5 by a friend who hadn’t seen or heard from her for several days.
[1]Kayla Croft-Payne
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office has followed tips up into Pierce County, down into Cowlitz County and beyond but the young woman hasn’t turned up.
Last month, detectives said the last place they could verify she was seen was a a trailer park in the Toutle area.
Winlock resident Jerome Painter is organizing Thursday’s event at Penny Playground in Chehalis. His cousin is a really good friend of Croft-Payne’s, he said.
“I know a lot of people who know Kayla and love Kayla and want answers, like her family,” Painter said. “It’s just touched my heart and I really wanted to do something.”
Painter said people who know her and people who don’t are equally welcome to attend.
Her parents and other family members will be there, he said.
Her father, Thomas Payne of Longview, said he’d rather his daughter was found, so he didn’t have to go to such a gathering, but he will be there to honor his daughter.
“I’m hoping some of her friends will come up and talk with me,” Payne said today.
He’s frustrated, having so little information about his daughter’s movements before she vanished, and hopes perhaps someone who hasn’t been comfortable talking with law enforcement would feel okay talking to her father, he said.
Painter put Croft-Payne’s parents to work, giving them tasks such as spreading the word and trying to round up donations of candles and helium balloons.
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What: Vigil for Kayla Croft-Payne
Where: Penny Playground in Chehalis, at Southwest 13th Street, off Interstate 5 exit 76
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday April 28, 2011
For information: contact Jerome Painter at jeremy@zebracomputers.com
Join the Missing Kayla Facebook page, here [2]
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Read background on Kayla Croft-Payne, here [3]