MONROE — Close to 600 people walked along the road and filled the church to capacity Friday afternoon, paying their last respects to Uri Sellers, 19, who was murdered in Ames in the early morning hours of April 20.

The church was almost silent. The only noises were a baby’s crying and a few muffled coughs. Most faces were taut with grief as they sat shoulder to shoulder on the pews. Uri wasn’t the only one the killer hurt.

About 75 bouquets of flowers lined the alter, the neighboring stairs and windowsills. Yellow chrysanthemums rested atop Uri’s casket in front of the sanctuary and a framed picture of him hung on an easel next to his casket.

The front two pews on the right side of the church were filled with Uri’s football teammates. They walked in, sitting rigid, trying to control painful emotions. They looked out of place in their dark suits and ties. It looked as if they would have done anything in the world to be someplace, anyplace else. A young life was gone. They needed to say goodbye.

Uri’s younger brother, Caleb, was in the front pew on the left side of the church. He stood with his back straight and his shoulders square, but only for a second or two. Then he began to lightly rock himself back and forth in grief until somebody curled their arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

The Rev. Marvin Potter, former pastor of the Monroe Presbyterian Church, called Michael Runyan, the man accused of stabbing Uri, an “angry, troubled and confused young person with little respect for life.”

He spoke of forgiveness and appreciation of life, a bittersweet sermon for a church full of people filled with feelings of anger, confusion and loss. Did these people find any justice knowing that both of Uri’s attackers had turned themselves in and Ames police had found the murder weapon on the day Uri was to be laid to rest? It’s hard to tell.

“You are young. You are bold. You are brave. You think nothing can happen to you. Yet in a flash the breath can be gone from us. Life is over. Learn to respect and appreciate life,” Potter said.

All eyes were on Uri’s closed casket, surrounded by flowers, in the front of the church. The Rev. Larry Gander, pastor of the Monroe Presbyterian Church, echoed the question haunting everyone’s mind.

“Show me a reason for Uri’s death. In truth, there is no reason. It was a cowardly act,” Gander said.

Uri’s high school football coaches spoke of Uri. Their voices cracked and they cried for their football player and friend. The tears that had been building up behind Uri’s teammates’ eyes couldn’t be held back any longer it seemed, and the young men ran the backs of their hands across their shaven cheeks wiping tears away.

Gordon Jones, former assistant football coach of Prairie City Monroe High School, where Uri played, spoke of perseverance and what Uri would have wanted everyone to do in such a situation.

“When you think you’re at the end of your rope, you have to tie a knot and hang on. It’s time to tie the knot and get on with our lives. That’s what Uri would have said,” Gordon Jones said.

Uri had honor. He was a gentleman and he never compromised his values or beliefs, said Todd Jones, science teacher and assistant football coach at PCM High School.

The mourners gathered around the grave site at Silent City Cemetery. Uri’s plot was framed on three sides by farm land and a deep-blue sky on a warm, bright Friday afternoon.

The funeral-goers stood in silence, their tears catching the sunlight and glittering on their cheeks as they listened to Metallica’s, “Hero Of The Day” and Ozzy Osbourne’s, “See You On The Other Side.” Even after the pastor uttered, “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” the hundreds stood motionless remembering a young man senselessly lost and waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen: Uri isn’t coming back.

It was time to go home. A man wandered over to the chain link fence at the edge of the cemetery and began sobbing, his body shaking so hard he had to hold on to the fence for support. People drove away leaving only the gravel dust of the road to drift away and Uri to rest under the blue sky.