Six-year-old Sydney girl Kiesha Abrahams has been laid to rest, six months after her remains were found in a shallow bushland grave.
Many of the 100-plus mourners wore Kiesha's favourite colour purple during the private funeral on Wednesday at the north chapel of Pinegrove Memorial Park in Minchinbury in Sydney's west.
Family and friends consoled Kiesha's father Chris Weippeart at the service, where a choir of children sang In the Arms of an Angel, News Limited reports. Kiesha was reported missing from her Mount Druitt home in Sydney's west on August 1 last year.
The girl's mother Kristi Abrahams, 28, and stepfather Robert Smith, 31, were charged with Kiesha's murder after her skeletal remains were found in April this year in a shallow grave in bushland near her home.
Father Edward Dooley presided over Wednesday's service and urged mourners to remember Kiesha - but to also focus on the present and the future
. "It is now time to heal," Fr Dooley said. The Purple Army, supporters of the Weippeart family, donned their purple shirts and handed out purple ribbons ahead of the ceremony.
Kiesha's coffin was covered in flowers and arrived before the funeral service started.
Her grandmother Liz Weippeart requested that the funeral be a private event for people close to the family.
"She is our little girl, this is the way want to do it," Mrs Weippeart said.
"I don't mind who comes to the memorial, but we want to keep the funeral service private and low-key."
A public memorial, open to the community, is planned for next Tuesday. Social networking websites were abuzz with well-wishers writing messages in memory of Kiesha.
"Rest in peace princess. A funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angles and you truly are an angel now," Kate Helena Anderson wrote on Facebook. "fly free now Angel, rest easy," wrote Leanne Harrison.
The organisation Australian Missing and Endangered Children posted: "Rest in peace today little one, forever remembered." NSW Police commissioner Andrew Scipione expressed his sorrow to family, saying the case had it has affected many Australians.
"There can be nothing sadder to a community, to a nation, than to lose a child particularly in circumstances like this," Mr Scipione told reporters in Sydney. He said all parents would be affected by Kiesha's death but he reminded people that those accused of her murder were still before the courts.
"But from a father's perspective I would say ... it must be a terrible thing to have to bury your child," Mr Scipione said.
"No parent should have to bury a child. Whilst today is sad, it also brings closure and I think that's a good thing." AAP vpm/jjs/jmt 28-09-11 1425
