RALEIGH -- Overflow parking from the Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church’s lot stretched up and down Sanderford Road. All the cars belonged to people inside the church, gathered to say good-bye to Cynthia Moreland and pay their respects to her family.

“I'm sure there's people here that didn't even know either one of them,” said Debbie Carter, who has known the Moreland’s for many years. “They touched a lot of lives. They really did."

Carter works at Wake Med with Cynthia's husband, Walter. She says they prayed everyday for Cynthia at work in Wake Med’s chapel.

"We prayed that she was alive and that she'd be coming back to us,” said Carter, “and it was an agonizing 10 days for everyone, especially for Walter."

The Wendell mother and grandmother went missing Aug. 22, when she failed to show up for work at the Progress Energy Building in Raleigh. Her body was found behind an abandoned house in Harnett County on Sept. 1.

Friends say Cynthia will be remembered as a kind spirit who touched everyone she met.

"She just had a smile that can light up a place,” explained Charles Eley, a family friend. “I mean, if she walks in a room, her radiance, you could just feel her presence. She was just a beautiful person."

She was a beautiful person who was clearly loved by many.

Antonio Chance, 29, a convicted sex offender, was originally charged with kidnapping Moreland, but this week he was also charged with first-degree murder. The district attorney's office says the state will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

The Harnett County couple who discovered Moreland's body has received the reward money that was offered for information about her whereabouts.