Rowden says her daughter hooked up with Marc, who was three years older, through a mutual friend. By late 2009, the romance had begun. Rowden says she met Marc when Ostermeier brought him to Thanksgiving dinner that year.

“I didn’t know Marc very well, but every time I was around him, he drove me nuts,” Rowden says. “He was so hyper and obnoxious. Since (the tragedy), he has totally changed his attitude with my husband and I. He’s straightened up his act.”

Rowden, who is in frequent contact with Marc, said she doesn’t know much about his history with police.

“He doesn’t talk to me about anything I would consider wrong,” Rowden says.

Ostermeier dropped out of school after getting pregnant early last year, much to her mother’s consternation.

“I found out that since she was 17 and pregnant, she was legally emancipated – I couldn’t do anything about it,” Rowden says. “We were getting along, but of course, we were fighting over the whole school issue. … She was 17, wanted to run all the time.”

Once pregnant, Ostermeier told her mother that she would get a GED, but Rowden insisted on a diploma, and so her daughter moved in with relatives in Springfield and began attending Lawrence Education Center. That didn’t work out, but Ostermeier eventually came around and moved back with her mother in the fall of 2010 so that she could re-enroll at Tri- City.

Back at her mother’s house, Ostermeier’s grades improved. When she visited Tri-City shortly after giving birth a year ago to show off Alexis, she also picked up her homework, Rowden says. She was awarded a posthumous diploma when her class graduated last year, and the 2010 yearbook is dedicated to her.

“She did so much better than we ever expected,” Rowden says.

At first, Rowden said that she had to show her daughter how to burp Alexis, and she initially needed help changing diapers, but she was a quick study.

“I would just lay in bed, thinking ‘She’s got to learn to do this on her own – I’ve already raised my child,’” Rowden recalls. “And she did. She grew up a lot, real quick.”

Rowden doesn’t doubt that her daughter and granddaughter were victims of foul play. She says she has faith in detectives.

“I know how hard they’ve worked on it,” Rowden says.

Alexis would have celebrated her first birthday tomorrow, on Veterans Day. Rowden is taking the day off, along with her best friend. She says they will go to the cemetery.

“It’s not going to be a very easy day for me,” Rowden said.

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].