Church holds prayer vigil for girl swept away in river

GRESHAM, Ore. – There were no empty seats and hardly a dry eye Tuesday night during a prayer vigil at a Russian church for a 6-year-old girl swept away in the Clackamas River Sunday.

The pain was palpable as friends gathered to mourn Vinesa Snegur. Earlier in the day, rescue crews officially suspended the search for the girl.

Crews found her purple hood at the bottom of the river two miles from where she fell into the river. About three miles downriver, they found her fleece jacket and eight miles away they found another jacket she was wearing.

She was playing in the snow with her parents near Austin Hot Springs, about 30 miles from Estacada when the tragedy happened.

Rescue crews said a tracking dog found no sign Vinesa ever managed to get out of the river.

Many members of the church where the vigil was held spent the last few days at the river, helping to look for the girl. Some spent hours walking the banks and searching the water, hoping to find Vinesa for the family’s sake.

"Every loss is a loss. If it's a small girl, it's twice as worse," said Pastor David Klassen.

"It hurts to know she's out there and this happened," said Raul Zepeda.

As soon as Zepeda heard Vinesa had slipped into the Clackamas River and disappeared, he rushed out to the hot springs to help search.

"You can't help but feel so hopeless looking at the rapids, you don't want to think the worse, but what else can we do?" Zepeda said.

He and fellow church members have gone out every day, working their way downriver. Despite the official search being suspended because of bad weather and raging water, family and friends refuse to give up.


"There has to be something more," Zepeda said. "There has to be more clues. Why stop? Maybe for them they stop but for us there's still hope. So we're not going to stop."

"Every day (we) try to find (the girl) because the family needs closure," said Klassen. "If they will not find the girl, it will be very difficult for them."

About 50 people searched a four-mile stretch of the river. It was a family member, KATU News was told, who found Vinesa's jacket eight miles downstream.