MAPLEWOOD, Minn. (WCCO) - Sixteen-year-old Anna Hurd was found stabbed to death early Saturday morning in a wooded area inside Hillside Park in Maplewood. Now, her mother is opening up about the little girl she lost.
Hurd lived in Minnesota with her father for a year. She was expected to leave for Texas to be with her mother, Jennifer Hutchins, on the night she died. Hutchins returned Monday to the area inside Hillside Park where her daughter Anna took her last breath.
“It was such a brutal death. That’s what makes it harder, that I can’t get past that my baby was alone and dying out here,” Hutchins said.
At Sunday night’s vigil for Anna, Hutchins could not stop crying. On Monday, with flowers in hand, she remembered the young lady she called “Nanners.”
“She was always just the one to make you laugh. Bubbly, happy. Always smiling,” she said.
Hutchins says Anna was a beacon of light, and everyone who met her instantly called her their best friend.
“From Texas to Minnesota, anyone that Anna met they loved her because of her charisma. They could tell what kind of a good person that she was,” she said.
Hutchins says she spoke with Anna after she left North St. Paul High School for the day – hours before her body was found.
“She told me, ‘Hey Mom, I love you. I’m gonna get everything ready. I so excited to come home tomorrow,’” said Hutchins. “She wanted to say goodbye to her friends that night.”
Her night out with friends would be her last. After calling Anna for hours with no answer, she learned of her death by checking social media.
“When you go on Facebook and you see ‘R.I.P. Anna’ and all this other stuff on your daughter’s Facebook – it’s a total shock,” she said. “I was supposed to hold her in my arms the next day, and now I’ll never be able to hold her in my arms again.”
Hutchins says the only thing that is getting her through is the knowledge that Anna touched so many lives. Right now, all she wants is answers.
Maplewood Police have not made an arrest in the case.
