Kayleigh Plamondon died recently. She was the victim of unspeakable violence by someone who claimed to love her.

She had broken off her relationship with her high school sweetheart, Justin "Pi" Slater over a year ago. Things had not gone well for them for sometime. Kayleigh tried to move on, had started school, worked 4 or 5 different jobs, mostly with horses, and was also doing book keeping and even some photography.

Kayleigh was a free spirit in the best sense of the word. She loved life. She was always smiling. She loved her riding, she loved her dogs, and she loved her work. Most of all she loved her family and her friends.

Kayleigh's mom, Debby, is a single mom who raised three wonderful girls, Kayleigh, Rachel and Trina. They were extremely close.

Kayleigh grew up here in the Middleburg area attending Banneker Elementary School and later Loudoun Valley High School. She graduated in 2005.

She began riding at an early age and was one of the countless youngsters from our area who began their riding career at the Nancy Dillon farm in Purcellville. Graham Alcock remembered her as a child who didn't mind working really hard to be able to ride She didn't even cry when she fell off a pony and broke her arm he said smiling. She only cared about when she could ride again!

She really excelled at Dillons and as a young adult she was sought after to help people with their hunters and to gallop race horses for some of the most successful trainers in the area.

Kayleigh was gentle and kind and a natural rider.

Like many of us she thought about making horses a career but was gently persuaded by her mom and friends to start college and was also excelling at her studies. Following in her Mom, Debby Plamondon's footsteps, she was pursuing a degree in accounting at Lord Fairfax Community College.

Kayleigh came to work in my studio about two years ago. The idea was that with her mom's help she would do some bookkeeping and general office chores along with helping out in the barn occasionally.

She was wonderful with the animals. They all were drawn to her gentleness. On one occasion she tamed a very wild and scared billy goat that just appeared in our parking lot one day. It took a crew of people to ease him into a stall after four or five days of not being able to get near him.

Kayleigh spent hours sitting in the stall with him, finally getting him to eat out of her hand and to trust her. Not only did she have great success with her animal husbandry but before long she was a pro in the photo studio as well. She was great with computers and began to master Adobe photoshop while I was still struggling to learn the basics.

Time after time she made absolutely beautiful prints for clients and corrected large folders of images as if there was nothing to it! Most of all, Kayleigh was a breath of fresh air. Being in her presence was always a happy experience. There were no big deals to Kayleigh.

If you needed something done she would just do it.

"No problem" she would always say!

Her bumper sticker read "Live the Life you Love" and she truly did!

On Tuesday, June 9, Kayleigh came back to work after a few days away at a Concert in Buffalo, N.Y. Music was a big part of her life. She was in good spirits but shared with me some concern about her former boyfriend. They had continued to share in the care of a dog named Polo that Kayleigh absolutely loved.

Polo used to come to work with Kayleigh every day and would sit with her in her chair while she worked, looking up at her adoringly. When Kayleigh and Justin parted ways, Justin wouldn't hear of Kayleigh keeping Polo.

Many of us were appalled at this but Kayleigh kindly backed away saying that Justin loved him too and assured us that he would take good care of Polo. She eventually rescued another wonderful little dog named Gracie who also adored Kayleigh and became her constant companion.

Justin continued to try to maintain contact with Kayleigh through Polo. Kayleigh reported to me on Tuesday that he had told her that he was giving Polo back to her for good, actually brought him to her over the previous weekend and then called on Monday and told her he had changed his mind. This had happened all too often.

We talked about it for a bit and she also told me that Justin had threatened to kill himself and Polo and he had been hospitalized the week before for psychiatric evaluation. He didn't stay in the hospital however. He checked himself out in one day. It was rumored that he told his father that he no longer felt the need to kill himself but that someone else had to die!

Kayleigh told me several other things that really alarmed me and I begged her to cut off all contact with him and not to let him know where she was.

She assured me that he would never hurt her but that she would be fine because she was house sitting for the next couple of weeks and he wouldn't know where she was.

I never saw Kayleigh again.

Two or three of the people Kayleigh rode for in the mornings became alarmed when she didn't arrive at her usual time the next day.. It was totally unlike Kaleigh not to show up for work or to answer her cell phone.

Her car was found locked in the driveway of the house where she was staying but Kayleigh, and Gracie were gone. The police found evidence of a "violent crime scene" in the house.

The next day Justin's brother Gregory "Scott" Slater was found dead from a gunshot wound to his head in his Winchester home. Warrants were immediately issued for Justin Slater's arrest for his brother's murder and for suspicion in Kayleigh's disappearance.

Many of us continued to hope and pray that he might have only injured Kaleigh and taken her somewhere. I think that I can speak for most of us who knew and loved Kaleigh that during those four days we went over and over again from hope to the depths of despair.

Scores of friends as well as the police scoured the countryside especially the area along the Shenendoah River that bordered the farm where Kayleigh was last seen. Justin was known to be an experienced woodsman and many of his old friends were concerned that he could hide out forever in the woods and never be found.

The police had some clues that he had driven to somewhere in New York State. Finally on Saturday, June 13, four days after Kaleigh had disappeared, Justin was spotted and arrested in Wardensville, West Virginia. According to court documents he told police that he had killed Kaleigh.

Our worst fears came crashing down. The pain for all of us that have known and loved Kayleigh is unimaginable. Her body was found in a vacant house formerly owned by Slater's parents in nearby Lost River, West Virginia.

Ironically he had not killed the two dogs. Polo and Gracie sat quietly in the stolen car he was driving at the time of his arrest. They are now safely back with Kayleigh's family. This would be very important to her.

There is such a sense of unreality about all of this. Violence rarely visits our idyllic lifestyle here in horse country. Loss is always hard; we all experience it in one way or another, it's a part of life... But this violence against one so innocent takes us to another realm.

Kayleigh was a kind and trusting person. In the end, that may be the very thing that took her from us. A beautiful Memorial Service was held for Kayleigh at Jimmy and Emily Day's Farm in White Post, Va. where Kayleigh lived. Emily tearfully spoke of how she had envisioned hosting Kayleigh's wedding one day in this same idyllic scene overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It was raining gently. It seemed fitting. One–by-one people who loved Kayleigh stood and spoke of her. The theme was always the same:

We were all touched by her wonderful spirit.

A fund to benefit lost and abused animals was established in her name at the Middleburg Humane Foundation by Dr. Betsee Parker. That too seems fitting.

The one thing that I feel the need to say in ending is that, in retrospect, it seems that many people who knew Justin had backed away from him in recent weeks. It was rumored that he was doing very dangerous drugs. He was making serious threats especially about Kayleigh. It would seem that although many people found his behavior offensive, no one took it seriously enough to take steps to at least assure that those he was threatening would be safe.

Perhaps this was not possible but I will always wonder.

Two young people are gone and two families will never be the same. Indeed most of us who were touched by knowing Kayleigh will always feel the pain of her loss. Perhaps, we need to pay more attention to warning signs and not become immune to what is going on around us in an increasingly violent world.

I know it will be a long time before I stop expecting her smiling face to walk thru my door.