LAFAYETTE - About 40 people gathered Friday afternoon to remember Linda Damm as a single mother who wanted the best for her teenage daughter, and as a woman tortured by her losing battle with alcohol.

The memorial service was held in front of the neatly kept suburban home where Damm was killed and where her body was found weeks later stashed in her car in the garage.

"We want to be as close to her as we can today," said Damm's older sister, Helen, from California.

She asked everyone gathered near a large pine tree and a brilliant bouquet of red gladiolas to introduce themselves.

"Now we're all family," said Helen, who declined to give her last name.

Senior Pastor Jason Van Divier, of Calvary Chapel Parker, read psalms and asked everyone to celebrate Damm but also to evaluate their own relationship with God.

After the short service, friends and family mingled in the driveway, sipping coffee and eating cake and cookies spread on a long table in front of the garage door.

Police think that Damm was stabbed in the neck and throat by her daughter's boyfriend in early February, with the boyfriend receiving help from two friends in a bungled attempt to bury the body in a cemetery before finally just stashing it in the back of a Subaru station wagon in the garage.

Damm's 15-year-old daughter, Tess, helped plan the crime at a pancake restaurant, according to police accounts. Her boyfriend, Bryan Grove, told police he stabbed Damm repeatedly. Grove and Tess Damm continued to live and party at the home until police discovered the body Feb. 28.

Two other teens - Jared Sajal Guy, 18, and Jared Smith, 17 - face charges in connection to the slaying, accused of being involved in trying to dispose of the body. Grove was charged as an adult with first-degree murder. Tess Damm was charged as an adult with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. A judge banned her from attending the memorial service. She remains locked up at the Boulder County Juvenile Detention Facility.

Damm's brother and two sisters asked guests at the Friday memorial not to talk to the media. Three Lafayette police cars barricaded a portion of West Brome Place in the Beacon Hill subdivision to keep cameras and reporters away. A pile of floral bouquets grew at the base of the big pine. At various points, friends and family laughed, cried and bowed their heads in prayer. Soft music played in the background, competing with the hum of traffic on nearby U.S. 287.

On Thursday, Damm's siblings released a statement asking that everyone involved in the crime that resulted "in the death and desecration of our sister" be held accountable.

"Our wish is that the truths be learned and each person prosecuted according to the role that they played in ending the life of our sister," the statement read. "We would also hope that each person will be able to receive the psychiatric rehabilitation that they might need."

They also acknowledged their 52-year-old sister's constant struggle with alcohol.

"We supported and encouraged her recent efforts to get help, but Linda was not able to conquer her addiction," family members wrote. "This resulted in a downward spiral in her abilities to properly care for herself and her daughter, Tess."

The three siblings, including a younger brother and sister who live in Colorado, said that alcoholism ran in the family.

"We all grew up in the Colorado area," the statement read. "Our mother was an alcoholic and it was not an easy upbringing."

The statement confirmed an account on Tess Damm's My-Space Web log indicating she went to California last year to live with her aunt Helen, before returning to Colorado.

The family provided a photograph of Linda Damm taken at a time "when she was healthier."

In the statement, her siblings asked that people honor their sister's memory by becoming involved in their own children's lives. They said they still loved Tess.

"We ask that all of you would try to comprehend the depth of this conflict within each of us in the family," the statement read.

The turmoil between Linda Damm and her daughter had drawn the attention of authorities, according to reports obtained Friday by CBS 4. Police responded to the address six times last year, and the Department of Social Services had been involved with the Damms on a report of child abuse or neglect.

poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com