PARIS — One by one Wednesday evening, family and friends of 2015 Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School graduate Cassidy Patten stepped up to a microphone to share their memories of the 18-year-old Harrison girl who died in Lewiston on Saturday.

“It’s unnatural. It’s not supposed to be this way,” Pastor Rick Mowery of the Spurrs Corner Church in Otisfield said as he eulogized Patten at the vigil her family planned in the parking lot of Gouin Field at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

More stories were shared in intimate groups in a crowd of well over 100 people. High school students remembered Patten from classes they had together. People remembered her as an aspiring tattoo artist, a beautiful, smart and caring girl who loved everyone.

“She was a little shy, with a lot of sass,” Patten’s mother, Sarah, said.

The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency is investigating Patten’s death as a possible overdose and deemed her death as suspicious because of the circumstances surrounding how she arrived at Central Maine Medical Center. Someone drove her there, dropped her off at the emergency room and left, according to law enforcement officials.

Patten’s mother said Wednesday that she hopes whoever knows what happened that night will come forward and explain.

“I’m angry. I just want to know what happened to my daughter,” she said.

Other people in attendance Wednesday said they were unsure if the group of people Patten was with on the night she died were her usual friends.

Kasandra Morton, a junior at the Paris high school, sports a large tattoo on her thigh that Patten designed for her. She said it will serve as a reminder of her friend. She plans to have Patten’s name added around the edge of the tattoo. Morton said Patten also leaves her with a valuable lesson.

“Pick and choose your friends wisely,” she said.

That was a theme throughout the vigil.

One woman who spoke at the microphone told teenagers, “Make good choices in friends. Make sure you can trust them, because she thought she could trust them, and now she’s gone.”

Miranda Mack-Jackson, another of Patten’s friends, said Patten was the only person who really helped her through a difficult time.

“She made a promise that she would be there for me no matter what,” said Mack-Jackson, adding that there’s a lot of gossip swirling around the community right now. “But the people who really knew her will make sure her name is pure.”

Mack-Jackson said she doubts that the people who were with Patten that night will come forward, but she is hopeful that maybe someone who saw her before she left might step up and help provide some answers.

Paris interim Police Chief Lt. Jeffrey Lange and two other officers attended.

“We’re here to show our support for the community,” said Lange, who was instrumental in the formation of the Western Maine Addiction Task Force. “First and foremost, this is our community, and we established that task force for the community so the police presence is here to support the family and to show the public that we take this very seriously.”

Patten’s mother wore a wreath of white flowers around her head because she said that was her daughter’s signature. She said she organized the event because she realized that Cassidy’s friends needed some closure too.

“I’ve just been overwhelmed with messages from her friends and condolences,” she said. “I don’t even know a lot of these people, but they knew her.”

She said knowing her daughter was so loved made her happy, and that she will always carry Cassidy with her.

mjerkins@sunmediagroup.net

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