Memorial Planned for Slain Teenager

The family of a 15-year-old Ventura girl, whose skeletal remains were found four months after she was last seen shopping at a downtown thrift store, will hold a final memorial service for the girl on Saturday.

Investigators still have not solved the mystery of Jenniffer Rose Vernals’ slaying, said her mother, Lois Bowens of Oak View.

But after agonizing for months about her missing daughter, then learning in August that her body had been found in a remote canyon above Montecito, Bowens said her daughter’s family and friends need some closure.

“It’s hard to believe she’s really gone,” Bowens said. “I have to take someone else’s word that the person they found is her. . . . I guess the memorial is when it will really hit home that she is gone, and she is not coming back.”

Jenniffer’s anxious parents and friends plastered pictures of the cherubic eighth-grader across Ventura County after she disappeared on March 30.

On Aug. 4, a rancher near Toro Canyon Road in Montecito found bones that were later identified as Jenniffer’s.

Investigators with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department are still following up on leads they have received since finding Jenniffer’s remains, said Sgt. Bill Byrne, a spokesman for the department.

“We just had an arrest on another murder case we’ve been working on and had to temporarily divert some of the investigators for that,” Byrne said. “But those investigators are now back on the case.”

In addition to her mother, Jenniffer is survived by her stepfather, Richard Bowens of Ventura and grandparents Fred and Pat Herrera of Camarillo.

The memorial is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at Foster Park, in Casitas Springs.

Jenniffer’s remains will be cremated, her mother said.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Jenniffer R. Vernals Memorial Fund, c/o Santa Barbara Bank and Trust, 250 S. Mills Road, Santa Barbara, CA.

The money will help pay for the funeral and any remaining sum will go into a reward for information leading to an arrest in the teen’s slaying.

Memorial arrangements are under the direction of Clausen Funeral Home in Ojai.