‘She was the best girl’: 16-year-old shooting victim recalled at service

Jaelynn Willey’s family and friends honor her memory as community mourns

With her daughter’s casket next to her, she told the crowd that she doesn’t have words to explain what she’s going through — that it’s “the absolute worst feeling.”

“She was my girl,” Melissa Willey said. “She was the best girl.”

Willey recently set a club swim team record in the 100-meter butterfly, and she earned her lifeguard certification last year. An honor roll student, Willey loved her two cats, Twilight and Starlight.

Willey was the second-oldest of nine children and loved vacations to the beach with her family. Her uncle, Timothy Cormier, said her memory will live on through her brothers and sisters.

“Swim fast, my sweet girl,” he said. “We promise to do what you would do and take care of one another.”

Two of Willey’s younger siblings spoke, recalling through tears the last day they ever talked to their big sister.

Some who attended Thursday’s prayer service hadn’t known Willey well. But some said the shooting at Great Mills had forever changed the community, and they wanted to come as a show of support. WilkinsArnold instructed everyone in the hall to hold hands during the final moments of the service.

The prayer she recited asked for guidance as “we figure out how to heal this community.”

Still, Wilkins-Arnold acknowledged in her prayer: “We can’t help but ask, why?”

More than 100 Great Mills students, alumni and teachers poured into Washington over the weekend, promising to be Willey’s voice at the massive anti-gun violence demonstration, March for Our Lives. Many held signs depicting a silhouette of the girl’s face, drawn above the word, “Enough.”

The funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. today, and interment will be private.

“She will be missed by many,” her obituary reads, “those who knew and loved her and those who have come to know and love her.”