Having just moved here in November 2003, Elaine Sepulveda was relatively new to Oak Harbor, but since her disappearance Nov. 6, 2004, and the discovery of her body Jan. 14, she has become well known throughout the area.

A high-profile criminal case such as Elaine’s, which is broadcast regionally on TV and featured in major newspapers, leaves a mark on the community and in the hearts and minds of many.

Now that police and the courts are carrying the case, the community is left to deal with the aftermath of emotions as best it can. Students must continue to study, mothers to send their children to school, neighbors to trust, and everyone to wonder why.

In many homes and schools, Elaine’s has become a well known name, but who was Elaine? Those who knew her face even before it was posted on storefronts throughout town know best.

To her parents Juan and Mary Jimenez, sister Angela Sepulveda, 17, sister Maegan Jimenez, 7, and sister Alyssa Jimenez, 4, Elaine is the memories, experiences and anecdotes that come from living 15 years with a daughter and sister.

Elaine was born in El Paso, Texas, March 30, 1989. Sharing the same birthday with her older sister, Angela, Elaine weighed six pounds, and her mother said she was a quiet baby. Family members nicknamed her Amanda or Mandi when she was small, and she never really grew out of it.

As a little girl, Elaine would stay with her maternal grandmother while her mother Mary worked.

“She was her grandmother’s baby,” Mary said. “She loved reading and spending time with her grandmother. They would baked together.”

As Elaine’s personality emerged, her mother noticed that Elaine was a lot like her birth father’s sister.

When Elaine was three years old, her mother started dating Juan Jimenez who soon became part of the family and a father to Elaine.

“She was my strong one,” Jimenez said.

He said Elaine used to watch basketball games with him on the couch and, though she didn’t always know what was going on, she would ask him about the plays and scores. She was also the only one of the girls that dared to go on the large amusement park rides during a recent family trip to Disneyland.

Elaine’s parents said she liked drawing, video games, junk food and TV. One of her favorite pastimes was playing guitar, and she had told her parents that she wanted to be famous someday, like Kurt Cobain, whose music she favored.

Another pastime Elaine enjoyed was watching scary movies with her sister Maegan, who shared a room with her.

Elaine’s mother said, often, when they would watch scary movies together, Maegan would say, “hold my hand. I’m scared,” and Elaine would tease her that she wasn’t going to, but would in the end.

Both Elaine’s parents said Elaine wasn’t known for acting seriously, but rather for taking more of the clown role in the family.

“She was always cracking jokes, trying to make us laugh,” Jimenez said.

When someone in the house would do something silly, he said they would call it “pulling an Amanda,” because of all the silly things for which she was known.

“One thing she could do was laugh at herself,” her mother said. “She was the blond of our family, the silly, ditsy one.”

Jimenez said “cool beans” was Elaine’s phrase for anything. But when it came to real beans, Elaine was just getting started.

“She tried to learn to cook. She was always in the kitchen,” her mother said. “She tried making Spanish rice and a soup.”

Jimenez said he joked with her that if it wasn’t good, he was going to fire her as the family chef, but as it turned out, he didn’t have to.

“For her first try, it was pretty good,” he said.

If the cooking wouldn’t have panned out, Elaine’s love for dark chocolate would have kept her eating well.

“She loved dark chocolate,” her mother said. “She liked to go to the dollar store and just buy dark chocolate. Everyone else thought it was so nasty, but she thought it was the best thing ever.”

One of the things Elaine was looking forward to was her 16th birthday. Because the family was so busy getting settled here in Oak Harbor, Elaine did not get a quinceanera for her 15th birthday, which is the traditional coming out party for girls from Hispanic families. Instead, her parents had promised to have it for her “sweet sixteen” birthday in 2005.

Elaine’s dreams were to have a band, attend a four-year college and become an athletic trainer. Now, these dreams will lie with the memory of her in her family’s minds, and one of these family members – her namesake.

One of Elaine’s cousins named his daughter after her. When the baby was born, he called Elaine up and told her that he wanted to name his new daughter after her. To say the least, she was thrilled.

To family, Elaine is not news, she is a part of them. To the community, Elaine is a young girl that many knew without ever meeting, whose loss weighs heavy on them.