Bay Area friends attend memorial service for Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts

PIEDMONT, Calif. (KGO) -- About 60 people attended a memorial at Corpus Christi Church in Piedmont for Mollie Tibbetts, who once lived in the Bay Area with her family.

At the start of the service, people were invited to bring candles to the center of the sanctuary to fill it with light, the same light Mollie exuded.

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Friends who knew Mollie when she was a girl spoke. One person read a letter from her mother who was not in attendance.

Father Leo, who knows the family well, tried to make sense of her murder and offered comfort.

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Mollie's dad Rob Tibbetts was there but declined to be interviewed.

Mollie went missing in Iowa last July. Her body was found in late August. Cristhian Rivera, a 24-year-old undocumented immigrant, is charged with her murder.