Garden Grove, Calif. ? Thousands of mourners packed a church Wednesday night to say goodbye to 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, a child many knew only through a photograph flashed during news reports of her abduction and slaying.

Many of the 5,000 mourners who filled Crystal Cathedral, which was adorned with pink and white roses, said they saw Samantha as one of their own.

Mourners stand before the coffin bearing 5-year-old Samantha Runnion before a memorial service for the girl at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Samantha was abducted July 15 from her home in nearby Stanton and found dead a day later.

“It could have been in our neighborhood, it could have been one of our children,” said Lisa Genera, 23, of Anaheim, who brought her 3-year-old daughter, Ashley, to the funeral.

Bells chimed to signal the start of the service, followed by several musical performances, including “Whenever I Feel Afraid” from “The King and I.”

Samantha’s small brown casket was covered with pink roses just below the pulpit. Her mother, Erin Runnion, sat at the front of the church.

A program distributed at the service contained a picture Samantha had drawn of a little girl and a dog standing by a house with a heart-shaped window. On it, Samantha wrote: “I love My Family alot more then enyboody in the hole World.”

People began arriving three hours before the start of the service, carrying flowers, stuffed animals, balloons and cards. A memorial grew outside the massive cathedral, around a statue known as “The Lost Is Found,” which depicts Christ carrying a lamb, surrounded by children.

Charlene Nowak, 54, spent three hours in traffic coming from her Los Angeles home to bring a curly haired angel doll to give to the family.

“You feel like you know her,” Nowak said of Samantha. “You feel like she’s family.”

Samantha, who would have turned 6 on Friday, was playing with a friend outside her Stanton townhome complex when a man who said he was looking for a puppy grabbed her July 15. He put her in a car as she kicked and yelled to a playmate: “Help me.”

Her nude body was found a day later alongside a mountain highway. Investigators said she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated.

The suspect in her abduction, Alejandro Avila, 27, has been charged with kidnap, murder and sexual assault. He has denied involvement in the girl’s disappearance.