Five months later, the lawsuit has done little to pay the Sowells back for what they see as the death of their daughter.

"In my opinion Kelly was a hero," Sherilyn Sowell said. "She saved a lot of kids from this person."

Yet so much guilt remains.

Kelly enjoyed writing poetry, and she wanted her mother to read one of her poems the week before she died. But Sherilyn Sowell was busy and asked if she could read it later.

"If I would have read that I would have known she was hurting," she said. "I found it afterward. I cried and cried and couldn't stop crying."

It was titled "Hidden Tears."

"I am sick of being hurt and hiding it, so I will save myself from being lost in this dark place," Kelly wrote in the poem. "I have hidden for so long and will no longer have the fear of being overwhelmed with all these hidden tears."

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