AUGUSTA – Howard Klerk stood before 100 people Thursday, wearing a black and red ribbon and a button bearing the image of the niece he considered a daughter.

He wished he had good news to tell those sitting before him, many of them wearing the same ribbon, some quietly dabbing tears from their eyes.

“When I stood here before you last Sept. 25, I had a dream that this year, the number of homicides in Maine would have gone down,” Klerk said.

After a brief pause, he said in a deadpan tone, “What a letdown.”

Approximately 100 people were at the Hall of Flags to observe the second annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Among them: Gov. John Baldacci, Attorney General Steve Rowe and Department of Public Safety Commissioner Anne Jordan.

But most there were the family and friends of homicide and murder victims.

Baldacci proclaimed Sept. 25 Maine’s day to remember the victims of homicide.

Those in attendance wore red and black ribbons and embraced each other. Some wiped away tears as they remembered loved ones taken too soon by violent force.

Pictures were set up on tables of the victims in happier times, many of them smiling for the camera. A red and black quilt with the names of victims stitched in was on display.

Howard Klerk, a co-leader of the Maine chapter of Parents of Murdered Children and member of the group’s national board of trustees, urged attendants to take a stand against violent crime.

Klerk, of Richmond, said he was “instrumental” in the upbringing of his niece, Lisa Weaver, while living in Long Island, N.Y. He considered the girl as a daughter.

“Biologically, she was my niece but, to the world, she was my daughter, plain and simple,” Klerk said.

Klerk gave Weaver away at her October 1987 wedding to Matthew Solomon, the man who would later be convicted of killing her.

Weaver was strangled by Solomon after a fight on Christmas Eve 1987. Her body was found a week later in a garbage bag in a deserted field.

“You think about (the idea they could have been murdered), but you dismiss it,” Klerk said of the time before a body is recovered. “No one ever wants to think this can happen to their family.”

Solomon was convicted in November 1988. He has been eligible for parole – and been rejected – twice.

“There are 23 rights in the Constitution for criminals,” Klerk said. “You know how many there are for victims? None. Zero.”

Klerk also denounced the use of homicide and murder as entertainment in society, as well the book “Human Sacrifice,” which advocates the innocence of convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine.

Dechaine was convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry.

Parents of Murdered Children is a national nonprofit group providing emotional support for all survivors of homicides, not necessarily parents. The group also spearheads programs such as Parole Block and provides information about the criminal justice system for survivors.

Though members of Maine’s chapter organized Thursday’s remembrance ceremony, it was open to everyone who lost a loved one to homicide or murder, and the public.

Baldacci said “generally speaking, Maine is a safe state, but we still had 21 reported homicides here last year. That number doesn’t begin to include the number of mothers, fathers, children, siblings and friends left to grieve.”

As of Thursday, 27 people have been homicide victims in Maine this year.

Deb Cunningham, who came to honor her grandson, Treven Cunningham, quietly broke down in tears several times during the ceremony.

Ann Klerk offered her a hand, which Cunningham clutched toward the end of the hour-long ceremony.

Treven, a 21-month-old toddler, was murdered in December 1999, along with Mindy Gould, 20, his baby-sitter and his mother’s best friend, in a Dexter home.

Jeff Cookson, Gould’s ex-boyfriend, was convicted of both murders in 2001.

“Treven’s been gone a long time now, but other days, it feels like only yesterday,” Cunningham said of the towheaded baby who “was always so much fun.”

Cunningham hopes the awareness from the remembrance day will grow to the point that, “somewhere down the line, no one will have to go through what we have.”