Family struggles financially to bury mom next to murdered Phoenix daughter

The Byrd family wants to fulfill one last wish: burying mom next to her murdered daughter. Briana Whitney reports.
Published: May. 16, 2024 at 8:54 PM MST
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PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The family of a little girl killed more than 20 years ago while walking to school in Phoenix is now struggling to lay her mom to rest next to her.

The man who murdered Elizabeth Byrd is now on death row.

Her mother Linda Stone, who dealt with the pain for years, just passed away, and the family is struggling to honor her last wish to be with Elizabeth. May 2001.

It was a frantic search for eight-year-old Elizabeth Byrd, who disappeared while walking to her elementary school.

“I think somebody grabbed her on the way to school,” her mother, Linda Stone, said with panic and tears at the time. “I want my daughter back so bad.”

Linda’s intuition about her daughter’s fate was right.

The next day, the little girl’s body found in her school clothes, wrapped in carpeting and left in an irrigation ditch.

A man named Steven Newell had dated one of Elizabeth’s sisters and showed up to her funeral, then the cemetery.

“He stood in the background and that’s when the cops started looking at him. And then at the cemetery he stepped on the soft soil and that’s when they looked at his footprints from that,” Elizabeth’s sister, Denise Ross, said.

“And it matched, right?” asked True Crime Arizona Reporter Briana Whitney.

“Yeah,” Denise said.

Between matching footprints to the crime scene, an SRP worker who saw Newell in the irrigation ditch that day, and an interrogation confession to police that he strangled Elizabeth to death, Steven Newell was arrested for murder.

He was convicted and sentenced to death.

It was a nightmare come true for Linda Stone.

“She was never the same again. Never,” said Denise.

Denise said they’d often visit Elizabeth’s grave for comfort.

Two weeks ago, Linda passed away after complications from a stroke.

“It was devastating to me, yeah,” Denise said with tears in her eyes. “We’ve always talked, and she wanted to be buried with my sister Elizabeth,” Denise said.

Denise said she’s living on Social Security and struggling to make ends meet. She’s hoping the community will help donate so they can bury her mom next to her sister with a headstone.

“It would be so joyful to make sure my mom’s last wishes are done, you know. Because that’s what I promised her I would do, and I’m trying my best to do it,” said Denise.

Steven Newell still sits on death row awaiting execution.

Denise said it’s now up to her to see her sister’s case through till the end.

“I know my mom wanted to see the end of the death penalty case, and so, you know, now that I’m the oldest girl in the family I feel like I have to carry that on,” Denise said.

Linda’s funeral will be held next week.

You can donate to help their family with burial expenses by visiting their GoFundMe page.

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