Opal's family was devastated by her murder. 'He hasn't forgiven himself for that all these years,' Kathy Mills said. Three days later, the bodies of both girls were found along the Green River. Garrett, who had worked late the night before and was asleep when the phone rang, asked if she could find another ride. She said she was planning to do a painting job with her friend Cynthia Hinds. Her last phone call was to her brother, asking for a ride. One of Opal's habits did worry her parents: her frequent hitchhiking, It is not known whether she'd been hitchhiking the day she was killed. It would have been an early marriage, Kathy Mills knew, but she approved of Opal's fiancé and thought 'there were worse things' than marrying young. In the summer after junior high she became engaged to be married. She once walked into a classroom to stop a teacher from spanking her brother.

Like her father, Robert Mills, Opal was outspoken and sometimes angered teachers by challenging them. Fond of children, she was the godmother of a little girl who also was named Opal. Opal speed-walked with her mother and aspired to become a model. The children of a white mother and black father, they grew up in Kent, at the time an overwhelmingly white community, and were sometimes taunted by other children because of their heritage. She and her older brother, Garrett, were an inseparable pair. She was honored in church for memorizing Bible verses and later for reading the book cover to cover. Opal loved her Lhasa-apso dog, Muffy, and named the dolls and stuffed animals she had lined up on her bed. Wale Akinyemi, at New Direction Ministries in Kent. Mills' memories were punctuated by tears and an occasional smile as she spoke in the office of one of her pastors, the Rev. I hope if I ever see him face to face, I can say, 'I forgive you.' I know it won't be easy.'įor the first time since Ridgway's arrest Friday, Mills spoke publicly about her deceased daughter, wanting her to be remembered as the loving child she was - not just as a victim. I also go by the fact that it tells me in the Word that I have to love my brother and I have to forgive him or else I won't be forgiven this thing I've done. He told them, 'Anybody without sin, cast the first stone.' 'The Lord told us about a lady they were stoning to death because she had sinned. 'It says in the Word that we have all sinned,' Kathy Mills said. It has reopened her anguish, even as she believes the Bible calls on her to forgive. News that police had arrested Gary Leon Ridgway in the deaths of Opal Charmaine Mills and three others has brought no satisfaction to Kathy Mills. Nineteen years after the slaying of her lively 16-year-old daughter, Kathy Mills faces an almost unthinkable challenge: finding it in her heart to forgive the suspected killer.

Emma by Paola Opal