Editor's Note: This is the fourth story in a four-part series retelling the stories, remembering the dead and revisiting the families.

The day authorities identified Tommi Danielle Byrd, 24, as one of two hikers killed on Spence Ridge Trail was the first day of a new school year for her mother, Sandra Butts.

Butts, who lives 30 miles outside of Raleigh in Benson, remembers telling her husband she didn't want to go to teachers' meetings that day, Aug. 3, 1998. Something just didn't feel right.

Butts went anyway.

During an assembly she chose to sit in the back of the auditorium. She noticed a teacher liaison enter the room and make his way to the principal. Then both of them looked at her. The liaison, about Byrd's age, asked Butts to follow him out in the hall. He put his arms around Butts and said her daughter was dead.

"I passed out," Butts said. "When I came to, I just couldn't believe it. It was too hard to accept. I even called her work and asked for her. They told me she was dead. I just wanted to hear her voice."

James Finley Jr., then 21, shot Byrd and Derek Andrew Marston, both 24, on Aug. 1 at their campsite on Spence Ridge Trail. Finley fled to a 400-acre, heavily wooded area where he frequently hunted near the Montgomery-Richmond county line. After an exhausting 83-hour man-hunt, police brought him out of the woods.

Discovered Sunday about 10 hours after the shooting, Byrd's body was taken to a hospital in Winston-Salem for an autopsy. Butts begged the medical examiner to wait for her arrival before he started. She was five minutes late.

"I didn't get to hold her or rub her thick hair," Butts said.

For Butts and her surviving three children -her husband died two years ago- it sometimes seems like only yesterday when Byrd was still alive.

"A day hasn't gone by that Tommi hasn't been my first thought in the morning," Butts said, "and last thought at night."

Even her eight grandchildren, born after Byrd's death, know about her.

"We still talk about her," Butts said. "My grandchildren call her Aunt Tommi and on Mother's Day gathered flowers to give to their mom in memory of Byrd. She is so real to them and still such a big part of our lives."

Around the holidays, the family lights a candle for Byrd. Her mom still has a birdhouse Byrd's school children gave her. Byrd's friends still send Butts cards and flowers and call her on the anniversary of Byrd's death.

After Byrd's death, Butts realized what a great teacher her daughter was. School children sent Butts letters telling things Byrd did for them. One boy in a wheelchair said Byrd took him to a dance and they danced to every song. A girl wrote saying Byrd took her shopping, something her family never did.

"She touched their lives, but never bragged about it," Butts said.

Butts, who teaches in high school, said that if she sees kids heading down the wrong path, she tells them about Byrd's killer.

"Finley is suffering," she tells them. "He can't do anything. You don't want to end up like him."

Butts said she doesn't hate Finley. The students sometimes ask why not.

"I tell them if I hated him I couldn't go to heaven and be with Tommi. I hate what he did to her, but I have to forgive. Tommi would want me to. He deserves to be punished as he is."

Byrd and Marston both attended Belmont Abbey College.

When Byrd first visited the college, she noticed memorials to people who had died. Byrd told her mom she hoped someone would love her enough to do the same for her.

Today, a garden gate at the college carries both Byrd's name and Marston's.

Butts said she occasionally exchanges Christmas cards with Marston's family. The last time she heard from them, they lived outside Washington, D.C.