It's been one year since a Murray woman went missing in northern Graves County. Samantha Sperry was 25 years old at the time of her disappearance. To mark this occasion, more than 50 people attended a candlelight vigil near the road where she was last seen.
The parking lot of the Old Time Auction House on Kentucky Highway 131 was filled with people and a line of motorcycles hugged the road. On the bed of a pickup truck, someone had arranged rows of slim, white candles. Samantha Sperry’s mother Tina Artis stood near the tailgate, wearing a gray t-shirt with the words ‘Bring Samantha Home’ on the front. When she talked about her daughter, she smiled.
“Oh she’s very outgoing, very lovable, very likable,” Artis said. “Bubbly--is bubbly a good word for Samantha? Bubbly is a good word.”
Samantha has two children and would be 26 this year. She was last seen on this road in northern Graves County. A police investigation is ongoing. Her mother said a “grave injustice” was committed against her daughter. She described the past year with words like despair, destitution and nightmare.
“What we--myself, her children, my other children, my husband--have all gone through is very much despair but it’s also much bigger than that. I don’t even know that there’s a word out there to encompass everything that we have felt,” she said.
Amanda Stevens is Samantha’s aunt. She said Samantha’s son is two years old and is just learning to speak in complete sentences while her daughter has just started pre-school.
“Her first day was her mother’s birthday and Samantha missed that,” Stevens said.
Still, Stevens said the kids and the community remember her.
“Constantly ‘well I want mommy to have it’--if we get them balloons or something--’can we let these go? I want mommy to have them’,” Stevens said.
Stevens said Samantha’s friends and family searched for her every weekend since her disappearance and want closure.
“We have walked through swamps. We have walked clear from one town to the other. We have been in creeks and rivers and fought with snakes. And it’s just been exhausting but we found that if we stopped our minds would just run with the possibilities of what happened to her,” she said.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Samantha’s mother played music and people passed around candles, crossing wicks to share flames. After a prayer, --one by one--people shared their memories.
One woman compared Samantha’s fierceness to the sun, while another referred to her as a “red-headed stepdaughter.”
“In my living room is a houseplant that Samantha gave me for Christmas and every day I walk by I think about Samantha. I just want everybody to remember her because our family’s not going to forget,” one woman said. “But I love that kid and I want her body back home.”
Samantha’s sister Kimberly Jones said Sperry was “full of life.” She said they used to meet up almost every weekend to fish and play in the creek with their kids.
“And I have all those memories of having all the children together. That really helped me get going because it’s the kids, just making sure that they stay happy, that they still feel the love,” Jones said.
The song “Walking on Sunshine” poured out of the speakers. Jones said it was Samantha’s favorite song. As the chorus began, two little girls danced. A woman identified them as Samantha’s daughter and niece.
After a closing prayer, Samantha’s stepfather Anthony Artis spoke. He made one last request before the candles went out. He told the crowd that Samantha loved motorcycles and asked “his boys” to fire up the engines one last time.
