It’s been more than four months since vagrants crawling through a dumpster behind a Manteca dental office discovered the body of 22-year-old Kelly Marelich.

And the report from the San Joaquin County Coroner’s office outlining the cause of her death – which investigators have kept under wraps – still isn’t available.

According to a clerk at the coroner’s office, the case is still considered open because the medical examiner hasn’t yet signed off on a final paperwork. Once the formality is completed, the information contained within will be available to the general public.

An arrest looked promising during the first week after Marelich was discovered as detectives scoured Moffat Boulevard motel rooms and fielded tips from all of the community. But thing stalled, and since then the department has publicly said only that the investigation into what was initially classified a murder is ongoing.

Her death not only impacted those in the community that knew her, but also those that moved away to pursue other lives that were still connected through social media – using her Facebook page as a makeshift memorial and leaving tokens of gratitude for a young woman that, my all accounts, was universally loved and equally accepting.

During an interview with The Bulletin just a month after her daughter’s death, Gloria Henderson said that the one thing that she didn’t want to have happen was people let her memory and her spirit disappear.

“The last thing that I want is for her to be forgotten,” Henderson said. “What she stood for was beautiful. And the way that they found her – that was completely the opposite of that.

“A lot of people’s lives were changed forever that day.”