Make no mistake, the sign was not a memorial Thursday. It was a symbol of hope in the neighborhood.
Jessica Ridgeway went missing on Oct. 5 as she walked to school in Westminster. Authorities are searching the area as well as various open spaces to try and find her. An Amber Alert was sent out also on her behalf.
Neighbors are still extremely hopeful the case does not end for the worse. The Seymour sisters, Nadia, 14, and Olivia, 11, share a fence with Jessica's family. They came to Chelsea Park to tie the purple ribbon. They also used the leaves that fell in the park to spell out "Jessica Come Home" and shape a big heart drawn on the ground. It's a touching reminder in this community that it's small, that it's innocent, that it has been shaken.
"Just kind of feels like it's something, hope for the family," Nadia Seymour said.
Her mother, Marnie Seymour, said she had a conversation with Jessica's mother early Thursday.
"We talked about how the girls would talk over the fence, and she said, 'Well, when she comes home, we're going to make a gate so they can hang out, and they can go back and forth between their yards,'" Seymour said. "And it was 'when' she comes home, it wasn't 'if.'"
Seymour said she's had found ways to talk with her girls about what happened.
"We did talk about stranger danger, and all that stuff, but a lot of questions have been asked," Seymour said.
She said her daughters asked questions like 'what may have happened' and 'what someone who took her could have done.'
"A lot of things we had to talk about with the girls that you would have never brought up before," she said.
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