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By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – Seeing her dead daughter on a metal table was not the worst thing that’s happened to Elizabeth French.
“Missing her every day for the rest of my life is much, much worse than that,” French told the crowd at Thursday’s Illinois police memorial ceremony, an annual event on the Capitol’s southwest lawn.
French’s daughter, Ella French, came into her life as an eight-month-old foster child. Until the adoption was complete, Elizabeth French feared losing the little girl. The loss came almost thirty years later.
The names of two officers who died in the line of duty in 2023, Andres Mauricio Vasquez Lasso and Areanah Makayla Preston, both of the Chicago Police Department, are added to the permanent memorial outside the Capitol.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].