Lynsie Ekelund Remembered at Moving Service

By Brandon Ferguson Sat., Dec. 18 2010 at 6:03 PM

Categories: 2010 Homicides

Almost two months after Los Angeles County Coroner's officials removed the bones of missing Fullerton College student Lynsie Ekelund from a shallow grave in Santa Clarita, a memorial service was held today for the 20-year-old Placentia woman.

Ekelund left her mother's Placentia home one evening in 2001 with a man named Christopher McAmis, ostensibly for a night of clubbing in San Diego.

It was the last time anyone saw her alive.

Faced with new evidence discovered by investigators from the Orange County District Attorney's office, McAmis confessed to strangling Ekelund that night and burying her corpse at a construction site he was working with his father, Richard.

More than 100 people packed into the Placentia Presbyterian Church on North Bradford Avenue. Pastor F. David Throop led the service from a small podium in front of a towering rock altar flanked by a large portrait of Ekelund from her days as an El Dorado High School student. Throop shared fond memories of Lynsie and described her as a girl with a smile "that could melt an iceberg."

During the nearly hour-and-a half memorial, others shared stories of the young girl, describing her as an animal lover with a kind, adventurous spirit.

Family friend Kimberly Keith, who met Ekelund while working as a noon supervisor at Friends Christian School in Yorba Linda, stood in front of the congregation and recalled a time when during her days as a noon supervisor at the private elementary school, she had forgotten to bring a sweater. She shivered in the cold as she watched the students during lunch. Suddenly, she felt two small hands reach around from behind and drape her shoulders in a tiny sweater. It was Lynsie. Keith broke down when and recalled Lynsie saying, "I can't stand to sit here and watch you shiver like this."

Though there were no direct references to McAmis during the service, when Lynsie's mother Nancy spoke, she mentioned that only one person knew what happened to Lynsie for all these years and added quietly, "he isn't here."

The service ended with a slide show featuring family photos of Ekelund at various stages in her life. The stream of images, featuring an ever-smiling Ekelund, were punctuated by the occasional photos of her lying unconscious in a hospital bed and hooked to tubes following a severe car accident when she was five. Quiet sobbing could be heard in the hall during the moving display.

Four uniformed officers from the Placentia Police Department sat in the front of the hall. Among them was Det. Corinne Loomis, who did much of the leg work in the nearly decade-long investigation, as well as Police Chief James L. Anderson. In the loft above the room, several television cameras were perched on the edge of the wooden railing capturing the entire event.