Sunday, February 4th 2024, 7:40 pm
Family and friends of a Tulsa woman who was murdered in January are celebrating her life.
Cassidy Ritchie was found dead in her SUV on the side of Highway 412 one week ago.
About 100 people came out Sunday to show their support for Ritchie.
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Many wore her favorite colors, pink and purple.
After the service, they held a balloon release in her honor.
Family and friends focused on celebrating Ritchie’s life and the things she loved to do like enjoying snacks and drinks and sharing stories.
They describe her as intelligent, funny, and the center of attention.
"We want to keep kind of what happened to her out of the way,” said Joey David, Ritchie’s son. “We want to celebrate her and who she was as a person, what she did in her life, and that's what we did. It was good to keep the negativity out and the positivity in."
Ritchie’s husband is being held on a $5 million bond accused of her murder.
Her family says one way for them to get justice, is to make sure no one else is a victim of domestic violence.
"This is one people will remember, what happened,” said David. “The way that we're putting it out there, the way that we're keeping her name alive and keeping her face out there and her story alive. That's what we want. We don't want this to be another girl who got killed, we want this to be Cassidy Ritchie. She was a great person, a great mom, just a great human being."
They say what Ritchie would want them to do now, is not to stop and grieve her, but instead, to live their lives to the fullest and love others.
"I want to keep my mom's name alive and her story,” said David. “I know after this, we'll all go back to our normal lives, but like my grandma said, 'we can't move on, we got to go on.' We're going to keep doing that. My mom wouldn't want me to stay here and stop my life for this, she would want me to keep going, go to school."
David says his challenge to others is to make sure you tell your loved ones just how valuable they are to you.
"In my own family, there are some grudges that we all hold against each other,” said David. “I'm sure that goes for a lot of families too. I just wanted to put that out there because people could be struggling, you might not even know it. Like my grandma said, 'just talk to anyone.' It doesn't matter what you're going through, who you are, who you know, someone out there will want to help you and want to talk to you."
There were also domestic violence victim advocates at the service, talking to people about the signs of domestic violence in relationships and what resources are available.
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