She wanted to tell reporters gathered on her front lawn Tuesday about her daughter, Patricia Volpenhein, 29, whose body was found Saturday in a vacant lot near Amsterdam Road and Ky. 8.

"My daughter was a good person - she was very pretty, (and) people liked her," Volpenhein said, her eyes red with tears.

Volpenhein said her daughter, a single mother, loved going to the park with her 20-month-old son, Justus, whose name was inspired by Bible readings.

John Snow, 33, of Covington, was arrested Monday on a charge of murder and is being held without bond in the Boone County jail. Snow, who is also charged with tampering with evidence and being a persistent felony offender, has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 20.

Snow was acquainted with Volpenhein, said Boone County Sheriff's Department Spokesman Tom Scheben, but neither he nor the victim's mother would describe their relationship. Snow had been released from prison in May after serving nearly 11 years for manslaughter,after he pleaded guilty in 1993 to shooting his 15-year-old girlfriend, Wendy Castleman, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her death.

Volpenhein had been arrested in the past on misdemeanor drug charges and for traffic offenses, said her uncle, Stephen Roderick of Crestview Hills.

"She made some bad decisions in her life - we all do," he said, but she had started to turn her life around after the birth of her son.

The Donation Fund for Tricia Volpenhein has been set up at U.S. Bank branches to help Michael Volpenhein pay for her daughter's burial, and any money left over will help her care for her grandson, whom she intends to raise.

"He's all that's keeping me strong," Volpenhein said. "I'm going to miss her an awful lot."