BOULDER — Boulder residents on Sunday mourned a 25-year-old bibliophile mother who wore rainbow colors and big glasses and put positive energy in their lives — a woman who was murdered and whose body was partially dismembered and scattered around the country.
They gathered at the Boulder Public Library that Ashley Mead visited often and shared memories, about 50 friends, many saying tearfully they knew Mead only briefly yet absolutely could not forget her.
“I loved her instantly,” Nicole Vollmerhausen said.
Meeting at a farmer’s market, Mead and Anak Casas Ibarra discovered they both had young children. “And we immediately started talking. … She accepted everyone. We talked about everything from her work at a farm milking goats to my immigration story,” Ibarra said. “Thank you, Ashley. Thank you for accepting everyone in the community, no matter where they come from.”
Many were mothers and teachers who know each other from drop-offs and pickups at the Acorn School, a Head Start preschool, where Mead had been working as an intern. For example, fellow mother Sasha Strong, 24, found Mead “honest and funny” and admired how she treated kids as equals.
“I really enjoyed my brief 15 minutes with her every morning. We’re really grateful we got to know her,” Strong said, standing before the crowd with Blake, 4, her son — a student enthralled with “the silly Miss Ashley.” After Strong spoke, Blake whispered words in her ear.
“He loved Miss Ashley, too,” Strong added.
Mead came from a farm in Pennsylvania. She went to Boulder so Winter Daisy, her 1-year-old daughter, could be with her father, Adam Densmore, 32, a man from Louisiana who had moved to Boulder to attend culinary school, said Owen Love, who helped lead the memorial gathering and whose wife, Gwendilyn, had responded to an online ad and worked for Mead taking care of Winter Daisy while Mead worked at Acorn.
Boulder police have announced they suspect Densmore in the murder.
A teacher in the classroom where Mead worked and didn’t show up had a feeling and telephoned police. Officials in multiple jurisdictions began looking for Mead and, after Densmore was arrested Feb. 15 in Oklahoma with Winter Daisy, building a case.
Boulder police say Mead likely was murdered in Boulder then dismembered in Louisiana, and that some of Mead’s body parts were discarded in communities they suspect Densmore drove through with Winter Daisy before being arrested. Police say they found body parts in a Wal-Mart dumpster in Okmulgee, 40 miles south of Tulsa, near where they arrested Densmore and found Winter Daisy.
Love said Mead met Densmore in Louisiana and moved from Pennsylvania to Boulder only so Winter Daisy could be near her father, not to restart their relationship. Police now are appealing for help from the public in finding the rest of Mead’s remains, which may be in a purple suitcase.
Winter Daisy has been placed in the care of Oklahoma protective services officials.
Mead wrote on a job application that she enjoyed “making found objects sculptures and performance art.” She said she loved farming and “cooking foods which I cultivated.” Her motivation for working as a preschool teacher: “I want to take the lead role in my daughter’s schooling so I know I need to lay a solid foundation in myself to teach her properly,” Mead wrote.
And she had a dream: “I hope to one day run an outdoor-centered child care program on my family’s farm in Pennsylvania.”
The bright tie-dyed clothes she wore, the beautiful leggings and big glasses were her signature — quirky enough that colleague first thought the glasses were part of a Halloween costume. In Boulder, she moved mostly by bus, Love said, after selling the old black Ford she brought from Pennsylvania.
“She practically gave me that car. Thatap the kind of person she was,” Head Start colleague Erin Machado said.
“She did, truly, bring color and light to the world,” Machado said. “It’s tragic that is gone.”
