Vigil Marks 1-Year Anniversary Of Barway Collins' Disappearance

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Friday marks one year since Barway Collins went missing.

Family and friends gathered at his gravestone Friday, releasing balloons in his memory.

The 12-year-old boy was last seen alive on March 18 of last year.

His body was found weeks later in the Mississippi River. Barway's father, Pierre Collins, pleaded guilty to his murder.

Collins disappearance captured the attention of a nation, and those three words he said as he came home from school.

"There's my dad," said Barway in surveillance video from inside his school van.

Barway got off the school van but never made it inside his home.

"That video of him getting off the bus, it gave a lot of people hope," neighbor Sheila Bradley-Smith said.

His father first denied any involvement.

"The first time I shook his hand, I knew he had killed him," Bradley-Smith said.

Related: Barway Collins Investigators: Father Had 'Red Flags Right From The Start'

She helped lead several searches for Barway. She was there the day his body was pulled from the Mississippi River.

"You know the image of a child laying in the river, seeing his body up close? That never goes away," Bradley-Smith said.

Nearly 2,000 people said their goodbyes to the boy at his funeral in north Minneapolis, before he was laid to rest in Crystal.

The community will always remember that face, that smile. But it will also be changed, forever.

"You know, his momma come over here and just plop on the couch and go to sleep [laughs]," Bradley-Smith said. "That gives me a lot of comfort in knowing that we did the right thing."

Related: Barway Collins' Mother Speaks To The Community

Crystal Police Chief Stephanie Revering was out visiting Barway's gravesite Friday morning. She told WCCO it is the hardest case she has ever worked on in her 17 years in law enforcement.

A vigil for Barway will start Friday at 6 p.m. at the Crystal apartment building where he lived.