Family and friends will gather Sunday to celebrate the life of Jennifer Merriman, the Rowan County teen who was killed last week during a domestic disturbance Sept. 6.
The service will be held Sunday in Pfeifer University’s chapel. Receiving of friends will begin at 12:30 p.m. and the service starts at 1 p.m.
“I’m hoping that the message and the way she treated other people will be her legacy,” her mother, Andrea Merriman, said. “She never harmed anybody. She was always there to help other people.”
Merriman’s brothers have traveled from California and Colorado, and additional family came in from Tennessee.
“We’re coping,” her mother said.
Andrea Merriman said she’s put a lot of effort into planning Merriman’s memorial service, along with many of her friends who have volunteered to put together flower arrangements, speak and help with a variety of different things.
Merriman’s friends from afar have been reaching out on their own, her mother said.
“She has so many friends internationally,” she added.
Merriman was killed last week when her sister’s estranged husband, Montannez Antonio Moody, broke the window and fired shots into the Ritchfield home where the 17-year-old, her aunt, sister and two infant nephews were staying.
The shots killed Merriman, and seriously injured her aunt Bernice Merriman.
Moody later held a man and woman at gunpoint in Guildford County, and then kidnapped the woman. She escaped in Edgecombe County where Moody was found dead of an apparent cocaine overdose.