You don’t get over the death of a loved one, “you just get used to it,” said Terry Smart, the grandfather of homicide victim Sara Kendall Smart.

He made the statement Wednesday evening before balloons were released in front of the Muskogee County Courthouse. Friends and relatives of the 19-year-old who went missing Jan. 30, 2006, and whose skeletal remains were found Aug. 5, 2006, met in memory of Sara.

Her remains were found in a 55-gallon barrel that had drifted onto the banks of a farm pond about five miles west of Haskell. She had died of strangulation.

“I asked the Lord to forgive the one who did this — I have no animosity toward Jerry,” Terry Smart said.

He was speaking of Sara’s stepfather, Jerry DeWitt Raney, the man county prosecutors have identified as the main suspect in Sara’s death.

He said he had no doubt Raney killed his granddaughter.

Raney, 44, has never been charged in the death.

Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Moore said Wednesday afternoon a decision will be made very soon about charging someone with first-degree murder in Sara’s death.

Moore has painstakingly studied a more than 750-page investigative report on Sara’s death.

“There are voluminous reports and amounts of information,” Moore said.

Smart asked the Lord to bless the ones who organized the letting of the balloons and the candlelight vigil.

Sara was afraid of Raney and had stayed at Terry Smart’s house for about a week shortly before she died, her grandfather said.

“Then she decided to go back and live with her mom,” he said.

According to police reports, Sara and her 21-month-old son had been living with her mother, Laura Raney, and her stepfather, Jerry Raney, in Haskell.

Sara caught a ride to Muskogee with Jerry Raney on Jan. 30, 2006. He said he dropped Sara off near the McDonald’s restaurant at U.S. 69 and Okmulgee Avenue, where she was last seen about 8:30 to 9 a.m.

Sara’s grandmother, Lavonne Totten, said Sara didn’t like Jerry Raney, “but she was pretty spunky. She said one time he could do you in and he knew enough people that nobody would ever find you.”

Jan Combs of Muskogee said she’d known Sara since Sara was a little girl and played with her granddaughter.

“I lost a daughter three years ago and came because I felt like the family needed to be supported,” she said.

Terry Smart said Sara was too forgiving and subject to being led astray.

“I just loved my Sara — and this is a way to keep her memory alive for her child and the rest of us,” said her mother, Laura Raney.

After candles were lit, Sara’s longtime friend, Virginia Alberty, went to the courthouse steps, telling all Sara’s friends to “get up here for Sara.”

She told them the person responsible for Sara’s death is “going to get what he deserves. We’ll see her again.”

One young man sat on the steps and cried as music wafted through the air with the words “you’re beautiful.”

Raney is being held without bond in Muskogee County/City Detention Facility on several unrelated felony cases.

One involves a November 2007 charge of planning and scheming to kill a number of people, including Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson and the chief investigator in Sara’s death, Faye Banks.

Other felony charges pending against Raney:

• Possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony.

• Filing a false claim of insurance on a car reported stolen that had been sold after the vehicle identification number had been switched.

• Threatening to perform an act of violence (against a jail employee).

Raney also faces a hearing 9 a.m., Aug. 13 in Muskogee County District Court on a request for a protective order filed Aug. 4 by one of his former wives, Amanda Raney.

Raney recently was convicted of a misdemeanor of assault and battery in front of a minor in an incident involving Amanda Raney. Jurors recommended Raney be sentenced to eight months in jail, including time served.

Amanda Raney’s protective order filing alleges he abused her before and during their marriage. Amanda Raney alleges Jerry Raney threatened to kill her if she put him in jail and he got out. She iterated in that filing that he was the prime suspect in Sara Smart’s murder.