It has been two years since 24-year-old Sann-Dee King was brutally slain and her body set afire in her Frankford-area apartment.
Her murder remains unsolved.
Determined that she not be forgotten, friends and family gathered outside her old apartment yesterday to remember her during a candlelight vigil.
"Sann-Dee was a brief but very special star in my life," said her weeping stepmother, Grace King, holding a small candle in the subfreezing weather. "I saw a young lady who had been on her own and who had a level head."
Nikkia Martin, Sann-Dee's longtime friend and the vigil's organizer, agreed.
"She had a great, outgoing personality," Martin said. "She was real independent, loving and caring. This [outpouring] shows what type of person she was and that she was loved."
Sann-Dee King died Jan. 21, 2005 after a man strangled her in her Arrott Arms apartment, on Arrott Street near Leiper, before setting her on fire.
The case drew wide media attention because police failed to kick in Sann-Dee King's door even after repeated pleas from her father, Eugene King.
The Daily News reported that Sann-Dee King sent terrifying text messages to a friend, stating that she was in trouble.Her body was discovered when cops entered the apartment after the fire.
Eugene King declined to comment about his daughter's case yesterday, instead opting to share some of his fondest memories of her.
"I'm blown away, for people to come out here out of love for Sann-Dee," he said. "She was incredible; a go-getter, going to school, to work, and trying to make something out of her life. She was making it and going to do it, but her life was just cut short by a deranged individual.
"She had enthusiasm and she brought that with her," he added. "She just had this great enthusiasm about life."