Humphrey service Saturday
SCHENECTADY — A memorial service will be held Saturday for Samantha Humphrey, the 14-year-old girl whose body was discovered in the Mohawk River last week.
The brief ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. at the Daly Funeral Home on Mcclellan Street, according to her obituary.
The Schenectady High student vanished Nov. 25, beginning an intense missing person’s investigation that lasted until a man fishing in the river spotted her remains Feb. 22.
Last week, Police Chief Eric Clifford described the location where she was found off of River Street as a crime scene, but investigators have stopped short of calling Humphrey’s death a homicide.
In the obituary, her family wrote she “lost a short but ferocious battle with evil itself, and passed into infinity.”
It notes she is survived “by a multitude of loving and devastated family and friends, who will remember her with joy and pain until they follow.
“She is also survived by her adored cats, and Zoey and Bruno, loving and loyal mutts blessedly unable to understand their loss of a best friend. Samantha was and is a light in the dark, with talents, loves, and dreams. Her Brother-in-arms Mattox Akira Humphrey will carry that flame for us as we fade.”
The family said flowers were appreciated but that donations may be made to the Maple Avenue Animal Protective Foundation in Scotia.
Humphrey was spotted on surveillance cameras near the edge of the Mohawk River in Riverside Park shortly before midnight Nov. 25, and there is no video evidence the teenager then left the park. The video recording coupled with the discovery of a jacket that matched one Humphrey wore kept investigators focused on the river.
Searches were carried out in November, December and January. Her body was found by a fisherman Wednesday along the water’s edge on River Street.