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The Scottish and Maori heritage of the slain Christchurch schoolgirl Marie Davis were reflected in an emotional funeral service for her today.
About 500 people packed into Christchurch's Hornby Presbyterian Church hall to farewell the 15-year-old, whose body was found last week in the Waimakariri River.
Marie's casket
was carried in to Maori blessings and a haka and was carried away after the service to the sound of bagpipes in recognition of the cultures that made up her life.
The casket was covered in photos, flowers and Marie's red blanket, which as a child she could never be parted from.
Marie's mother, Janet, told mourners the service was a celebration of her baby's life.
"I will never say goodbye to my baby because she will always be with me wherever I go and wherever I am."
Marie was described both as a perfectionist and as, at times, "a bit of a mess", a mischief-maker and a great animal lover.
Neil Struthers, who officiated over the service, said it was important to acknowledge the wonderful work of police involved in Marie's case.
"And I believe, as a city, we need to honour them. It's very easy to pour crap on them."
Among those gathered today were a contingent of the police investigating her death and many of Marie's whanau from the North Island.
Detective Senior Sergeant Virginia Le Bas said earlier Marie's family had sent an invitation to the whole of the investigation team and a number of police officers would be attending.
"It is definitely out of respect for Marie and you do on these sorts of inquiries get quite involved with the family and it's good for us to go along and have that humanness about it because we do get involved in our inquiries and get a little bit distracted."
Ms Le Bas said police were still looking for Marie's mobile phone, which could hold vital clues into the identity of her killer.
"It's just another thing that Marie clearly had in her possession prior to her disappearance and it would be useful to locate that."
She said the investigation team was working through all the information it had received from the public and the forensic experts were putting the clues together to try to identify the murderer.
Police were still interested in finding the owner of a light coloured four-door sedan seen "travelling at speed" along the north bank of the Waimakariri on the morning of April 6 and were appealing for a fisherman to come forward.
"Several people have mentioned a man fishing on the river bank. This man aged 60-70 years old, had a dog with him and sat in a deck chair on Sunday 6 April, on the north bank, west of the Main North Road. As far as we are aware this person has not contacted us and we'd like to speak to him as a potential witness," Ms Le Bas said.
She said the investigation team was still positive and felt it was making good progress.
- With NZPA
