“I was friends with her,” she said. “She was amazing. She was so bright. So beautiful.”
McMullen was speaking of Mikayla Miller, a 16-year-old Hopkinton girl who was found dead off West Main Street on the morning of April 18. Family members and advocates feel authorities are not doing enough enough to investigate how Miller died.
Hundreds of people flooded the Hopkinton Town Common late Wednesday afternoon, standing largely silent as they listened to a group of speakers inside the common’s gazebo. Many held signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Justice for Mikayla.
The rally brought supporters locally, regionally and even from out of state. Among the 29 people who spoke to the Daily News, 20 said they lived in Hopkinton or were recent graduates of Hopkinton High. But the group also included one person each from Worcester, Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Updated on May 7, 2021 at 12:49 am
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The mother of Mikayla Miller told a crowd of hundreds at a vigil in their Massachusetts hometown Thursday that the 16-year-old s death last month left her shattered, then demanded transparency in the ongoing investigation that has yet to conclude how the teenager died.
The Hopkinton town common was packed with people who repeatedly chanted Mikayla s name and who were asked to reach out to District Attorney Marian Ryan s office to demand an independent investigation over what Mikayla s mother, Calvina Strothers, and other advocates say were delays in the probe and pushback against the family s search for answers.
Family of Hopkinton Teen Demands Justice For Mikayla, Asks DA To Hand Case To FBI
Family members and friends of Mikayla Miller, 16, gather on the Hopkinton Town Common for a vigil remembering her life, May 6, 2021.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
Family Demands Justice For Mikayla | May 6, 2021
Mikayla Miller loved to write. She had dreams of becoming a journalist and planned to spend the summer touring colleges with her mom. The 16-year-old Hopkinton teenager loved basketball, dancing to trap music, going camping in Maine and the ocean. Before they went off to bed every night, she brought her mom a cup of chamomile tea: hot, no sugar.
Community gathers in Hopkinton for vigil, rally for teen found dead in April Wale Aliyu
According to the evidence released so far, the Middlesex County District Attorney has suggested Mikayla Miller might’ve taken her own life. But Mikayla’s family is still burning with questions, and they say they don’t trust what the police and DA are saying.
All week long as Boston 25 reached out to her family, they said they would speak at a rally Thursday, and Mikayla’s mother held to that.
“We loved going to New Hampshire, I’m never going to be able to do that with her again,” said Mikayla’s mom, Calvina Strothers, trying to hold it together as she spoke in front of hundreds.
Mother of Mikayla Miller demands transparent investigation, forensics of item found on daughter’s body during Hopkinton vigil
Updated 10:29 PM;
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Only the hum of a helicopter and the cry of a baby could be heard on the Hopkinton Town Common as hundreds of people stood in silence Thursday in memory of 16-year-old Mikayla Miller.
The vigil and rally drew a sizable crowd in response to the death of Miller, a teenager whose life was cut short far too early.
“Nothing I say today is going to take away the pain that we all are experiencing in this new world without Mikayla, but my hope is that by sharing a little about her life, our life, it will help you get to know more about her,” Miller’s mother, Calvina Strothers, said at the rally.