They remember Audrey Cunningham as a cheerful and friendly girl; A family friend is accused of her murder

(CNN) — Family and friends of Audrey Cunningham, the 11-year-old East Texas girl who was found dead after disappearing on her way to school, remembered her as a bright and friendly girl during a vigil Wednesday night near the river where her body was found. At the beginning of the week.

“It didn’t matter where he went or who he met, he just dazzled them,” said Brenda Seders, Audrey’s aunt. “He can always make you laugh, no matter what mood you’re in. It’s not fair that we should all be deprived of that.”

Audrey disappeared last Thursday morning after leaving her home in rural Livingston, Texas, with a family friend who had agreed to give her a ride to the school bus stop, authorities said. But the fifth-grader never boarded the bus or entered her classroom, sparking an intense five-day search that ended when her body, submerged alongside a large rock, was pulled from a local river, according to court documents.

The friend who was supposed to drive her to the bus stop, Don Steven McDougall, was charged Wednesday with premeditated murder in her death.

Audrey’s mother, Casey Matthews, said during the memorial that her grief has left her speechless. He called his daughter “perfection”.

“I was truly blessed to give birth to such a wonderful baby girl,” said the mother.

Audrey Cunningham

As dusk fell at the memorial service, a crowd dressed in purple, Audrey’s favorite color, held candles. Several bouquets of lavender and purple flowers were placed on tables decorated with clusters of balloons while children dressed in dresses, scrunchies and purple shoes walked around the gathering.

Audrey had no problem making friends and was “friendly, very nice and very loving,” recalls Casey Evans, whose daughter went to school with her.

As many of his classmates and friends are now dealing with the fifth-grader’s death, Livingston School District Superintendent Brent Hawkins said in a statement that each child will have a different process.

“Any time you lose a child it’s catastrophic, but losing it the way we lost it was even more so. I have no words to describe it other than we had a brush with evil,” Hawkins told CNN affiliate KPRC. said to

Evans said she initially struggled to answer her children’s questions about whether Audrey had been found, and now she has to tell them she will never come home.

“How do you sit there and tell your kids… that they’re not going to meet their friend?” she said. “How do you explain it?”

Don Steven McDougal is a suspect in the death of Audrey Cunningham, an 11-year-old girl in Texas. (Credit: County Jail / AP)

The suspect lived on the family’s property

Polk County officials said the suspect, McDougall, was a friend of Audrey’s father who lived in a trailer on his family’s property and sometimes drove the girl to the neighborhood school bus stop.

McDougal agreed to take Audrey to catch her bus Thursday morning, but she was never seen at the bus stop and her bright red Hello Kitty backpack-like bag was later found near a local dam, according to researchers.

He was a key figure in her disappearance as authorities frantically searched the town, about 110 miles northeast of Houston, he said. Sheriff Byron Lyons said McDougall was seen assisting in the search effort, knocking on doors in the neighborhood and asking if anyone had seen Audrey.

Audrey’s body was found the following Tuesday in the Trinity River, downstream from the reservoir near where the backpack was found. It was one of several places McDougal told investigators he had been around at the time of his disappearance, Lyons said.

According to the criminal complaint, a large rock was tied to the boy’s body with rope “consistent with the rope seen on McDougall’s vehicle in the traffic stop two days earlier.”

No other details about the condition of his remains have been provided, and the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office is working to determine his cause of death.

According to the criminal complaint, citing video footage, cellphone data and forensic evidence, investigators believe McDougall lied about Audrey’s whereabouts and activities on the day she disappeared.

In the days following Audrey’s disappearance, McDougal claimed in several social media comments that he was not to blame for her disappearance and apparently “did nothing wrong” based on activity on the suspect’s Facebook account.

“I’m not guilty,” reads a comment from the account below a post on the “True Crimes Society” Facebook page the day after Audrey was reported missing.

“I was there and was questioned. I’m not running or hiding,” an account apparently linked to McDougall wrote under a post on Friday. He again commented, “I did everything I could to help find him. I did nothing wrong.”

McDougal has an extensive criminal history dating back to the early 2000s, including convictions for violent crimes and for luring a minor, according to court records.

He was convicted in 2007 of enticing a minor in Brazoria County, Texas. Court records show he pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison, but was given credit for 527 days served.

Online records do not detail the specific charges in the case, but the state defines the crime as “the intent to interfere with the legal custody of a minor under the age of 18” when a person “lures, persuades or leads the minor into the custody of a parent or guardian.”

When McDougall was charged Wednesday in Audrey’s death, he was already in jail in connection with an unrelated assault case. He is being held without bail on charges of capital murder.

Neither court documents nor jail records filed Wednesday list McDougall’s attorney.

— CNN’s Andy Rose, Raja Razek, Holly Yan, Rosa Flores and Sara Weisfeld contributed to this report.