Community gathers to remember slain teen | Community Spirit

A Puyallup neighborhood in shock and mourning held a vigil Tuesday night after one of its teenagers was murdered and another is accused of strangling her.

"My heart just dropped," said Cecil Daily, the father of victim Kimmie Daily. "Kimmie is my whole world and now I don't have it."

Cecil Daily's tear-filled eyes watched strangers and neighbors leave flowers and stuffed animals at his driveway, on his corner, and along the nearby field Tuesday where his daughter Kimmie was raped and murdered.

"I have raised her alone since birth and now I don't have that," Daily said.

He's closed her bedroom door, but his community and Kimmie's classmates have opened their hearts. They gathered at the vigil to remember the developmentally delayed 16-year-old who loved biking, hugging, and competing in the Special Olympics.

"It's good to see and hard to see and think about how many lives involved in," Cecil Daily said.

Police arrested 18-year-old Tyler Savage, one of Kimmie's Facebook friends.

"I knew exactly who it was -- I had a feeling," Cecil Daily said.

Prosecutors claim Savage lured Daily into a field and strangled her when she tried to leave. Cecil Daily says he spotted Savage with his daughter last summer.

"He was standing there and took off and I said 'Who was that?' and she said just a friend," Cecil Daily said.

He warned Kimmie that it only takes a second for something to go wrong. And he had a message for Savage if he ever saw him again:

"How could you?" he said. "How could a person... she never did anything to anyone."

Cecil Daily says he knows he has a lot of painful years ahead facing the suspect in court. Last year, he could barely afford to bury his father, and Tuesday night, the community took up a collection to help him cover his daughter's funeral expenses.