Destiny remembered: Hundreds gather at funeral for girl who touched many

Destiny loved to express herself.

"She was a very brilliant little girl," said her mother, Rachael Norton. "She had high dreams in life. She wanted to become a veterinarian. She loved everything. She loved animals. She loved nature. She loved people in general."

Family and friends who gathered for the murdered 5-year-old's funeral on Saturday told of a little girl who would put on her "princess dress" and dance to music.

She hugged people tightly. When Destiny smiled, she beamed, revealing a row of silver-capped teeth.

"How do you describe such a wonderful gift to this world?" said family friend Jenniece Whitaker, wiping tears from her face. "She had the most amazing smile."

Hundreds came to the Norton family's LDS Church meetinghouse at 700 South and 500 East on Saturday to pay their respects to the little girl who prompted a massive eight-day community search — only to be found murdered two doors away from her home.

"We all loved Destiny very, very much," said family friend John Flores.

At the funeral, members of the little girl's LDS Primary class sang "Holding Hands Around the World," a song Destiny had sung in church just a week before she vanished.

Many couldn't bring themselves to sit through the entire service. Among them was Destiny's uncle, Peter Brooks.

"It was the most beautiful service I have ever seen in my life, but I can't sit in there," he told the Deseret Morning News. "It's too much to take."

After the funeral, family and friends had a tree planted in the midst of five grown maple trees outside the church, as a symbolic gesture.

"She is now in the hollow of the Lord's hand," said Bishop Bill Silver, the family's LDS ward bishop and a Salt Lake police detective

Destiny's father, Ricky Norton, was the first to take a shovel and place a mound of dirt at the base of the tree. He was followed by dozens of family and friends who each picked up the shovel and spread some dirt.

Across the street from the church is the home the Nortons lived in when Destiny vanished. Two doors away is the apartment of accused killer Craig Roger Gregerson, where her body was found.

Outside the Norton home, a shrine to Destiny was filled with burning candles, flowers, balloons and stuffed animals.

Speaking to Ricky and Rachael Norton during the funeral service, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said the community had grown to love Destiny.

"The community came to feel in many ways like Destiny was theirs as well," Anderson said.

Friends said Destiny's death had reunited Ricky Norton with a mother and sister he hadn't seen since he was 14.

Also among those in attendance at the funeral were police detectives and FBI agents who worked on the case and volunteer searchers who looked for Destiny.