Kansas City, Mo. ? For the second time, the slain little girl long known as Precious Doe was buried in a Kansas City cemetery on Thursday, surrounded by the neighbors and investigators who kept her case alive for four years.

Only now, the grave marker is not a simple stone. The rectangular piece of marble bears a picture of the 3-year-old’s face and, more importantly, that she was named Erica Michelle Marie Green.

“This time, she has her identity,” said Police Sgt. David Bernard, who headed up the investigation of Precious Doe and served as one of the pallbearers for her small, white casket.

Erica’s decapitated body was found in a Kansas City park in April 2001. Her head was found nearby days later. Not knowing who she was, neighbors came to call her Precious Doe.

Hundreds gathered for Precious Doe’s first funeral in December 2001. But the body was exhumed in July 2003 so experts at Louisiana State University’s faces laboratory could make a lifelike bust of what the girl may have looked like. Her body has been in the Jackson County morgue since.

Her mother, Michelle Johnson, 30, of Muskogee, Okla., has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing. Erica’s stepfather, Harrell Johnson, 25, also of Muskogee, is charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty.

Octavia Southall lays a floral arrangement at the grave of 3-year-old Erica Green in Memorial Park Cemetery, Thursday in Kansas City, Mo. Green was known only as Precious Doe after her decapitated body was found in 2001. It took four years to solve the case and determine the girl's identity.

Thursday’s reburial, in the same plot, was smaller, as visitors braved the sweltering heat to lay flowers, balloons and stuffed animals by the girl’s new tombstone.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., whose district includes the neighborhood and who is also a minister, officiated over the burial.

“Erica tragically experienced death in the early morning of life. But this was not God’s will … but the will of wrong,” Cleaver said.

Among the mourners was Betty Brown, a neighbor of Michelle Johnson’s in Muskogee, who essentially raised Erica until the Johnsons took the girl away to Kansas City.

“It was hard when I didn’t know where she was,” said Brown, often breaking down during the ceremony and afterward. “I always was hoping one day I’d see her again. I wasn’t thinking about seeing her in heaven.”

Brown’s daughter, Nancy Jackson, said she hoped Erica’s death was a warning to other parents to not let their frustrations with young children get away from them. Prosecutors say Harrell Johnson fatally beat the girl when she wouldn’t go to bed.

“Don’t let it come to this,” she said.

Kansas City Councilman Alvin Brooks said he and others attempted to get permission for Erica’s father, Larry Green, to be released from a prison in Lawton, Okla., to attend the funeral but were unsuccessful. Green is serving a 10-year sentence for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, according to Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Massie said Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry’s office asked the department whether it was possible for Green to go to the funeral but that was the extent of it.

“Ordinarily, we would not let anyone go out of state for a funeral,” Massie said.

Residents who attended the burial said it provided some closure but not completely.

“It’s like a kind of milestone,” said Marcie Williams, co-chairwoman of the Precious Doe Committee, which organized memorials and collection information for the girl. “Now, when this is done, we can focus on making sure the people responsible are held responsible.”