LEWISTON — Jamie Merrill watched as the clump of balloons floated over a stand of trees, became smaller and disappeared into the night sky.

There one moment and gone the next.

The symbolism was stark. Wednesday night marked the one-year anniversary of the last time she talked to her 10-year-old son, Jesse Ryan, before he was slain in the Aroostook County town of Amity.

“Jesse liked balloons,” she said, staring at the sky long after the balloons were gone. “He should be here watching.”

Jesse Ryan was stabbed to death, along with his father and another man, in a killing spree last June. A 20-year-old man has been charged in the killings and awaits trial.

On the night of June 22, 2010, Jamie talked with her son on the telephone. They played a game. Everything seemed normal. There was no way to know it would be the last time she’d hear his voice.

“She talked to him from 8:30 p.m. until 8:43,” said Dwayne LaBrecque, Jamie’s fiance. “That was the last time.”

LaBrecque and roughly a dozen others stood with Jamie as the balloons floated away, released at exactly 8:30 p.m. A couple of them had attached letters to the balloon strings, sending them off into the sky. More than a few of those in attendance were crying. But Jamie stood stoically, clutching her 9-month-old son Gabriel as night fell on her Main Street home.

“It just breaks my heart,” said friend Amanda Jones. “But she’s amazing.”

“It’s been tough today,” LaBrecque said. “A lot of emotions.”

The anniversary was a grim one. But Jamie and her friends said they wanted to do something to mark the occasion and to remind the world what happened.

The killing spree shocked the state, in particular those in the quiet town of Amity. Jesse’s father, Jeffrey Ryan, was also slain, as was his friend Jason Dehahn. For more than a week, the killings went unsolved before Thayne Ormsby was arrested and charged in all three deaths.

Merrill said she chose to launch 10 balloons to mark the age of her son when he died. She attached a note of her own before the balloons were released into the sky.

“I told him he can still come home,” she said. “But I know he can’t.”

She said she likes to believe that Gabriel, the boy in her arms, somehow senses the spirit of his older brother.

“He does a lot of laughing and looking at things that aren’t there,” Jamie said. “It makes me wonder.”

A few minutes after the balloons disappeared, the sky was dark completely and the small, sad gathering moved closer to the house. They mostly shared happy memories, although each was aware that Ormsby’s trial is coming up — it’s expected to get under way in the fall — and that the work of seeing that justice is done is not over yet.

“This is definitely the kind of thing that should not be forgotten,” Jones said.

A fund has been set up at the Lewiston branch of Bangor Savings Bank to help pay for a headstone on the grave of 10-year-old Jesse Ryan, who was slain last year in Amity. Anybody wishing to contribute can contact the bank.