Cooper memorial draws friends, family

CARY -- About 170 friends, family members and area residents gathered to remember Nancy Cooper this afternoon at one of the places she loved best: Koka Booth Amphitheatre, the site of the outdoor North Carolina Symphony concerts she frequented.

Cooper's parents, Garry and Donna Rentz, her sister and brother-in-law, Krista and Jim Lister, and her brother Jeff Rentz, attended the ceremony along with Cooper's daughters. Bella, 4, arrived in a light green dress and pink ballcap, while Katie, almost 2, wore a white-and-red jumper and sucked on a white pacifier. Both girls sat quietly with their grandparents through the ceremony.

Remembrances began when Bella and Katie's music teacher, Julia Cobley of Kindervillage in Cary, sang "Over the Rainbow," "You Are My Sunshine" and the 23rd Psalm for the crowd, adding "For Nancy" as she sat down.

Pastor Mark Drengler of Resurrection Lutheran Church told the crowd he did not know Cooper in life, but that after hearing friends speak at an invitation-only candlelight vigil Friday night he could tell she was a woman who was full of life.

Drengler acknowledged the unfairness of Cooper's death: "This tragic, evil event -- it's not fair. You know it, I know it, but most importantly God knows it.

"God did not promise us a fair world," Drengler continued, "and God is not to blame."

Volunteers searching for Cooper after her disappearance last weekend had planned to base their search out of Drengler's church on Tuesday. Instead, it became an impromptu grieving place following the identification of Cooper's body Tuesday evening.

Another speaker, Hannah Pritchard, cried openly as she spoke about her friendship with Cooper.

"She was a second mother to my children," Pritchard said, adding that she didn't know what she'd do without being able to speak with Cooper every day on the phone.

But Pritchard said Cooper would live on, "especially through these special little girls, Bella and Katie."

Garry Rentz concluded the event by thanking the community for supporting his family, saying "You have made us feel so welcome."

Cooper's relatives plan to travel back to Canada this evening to attend a memorial service at Grace Lutheran Church in Edmonton on Wednesday. They will return Thursday, they said at a Friday morning press conference.

Nancy Cooper's husband, Brad, did not attend today's memorial. His attorneys released a statement Friday saying he needed to mourn outside the public eye.