Mother Makes Desperate Plea To Find Daughter's Killer

MALDEN (CBS) - A mother is making a desperate plea to find her daughter's killer.

"I cry every day over her," Lucille Russell says. "I go to bed at night and sometimes the phone will ring and I forget for a second and I think it's her."

Russell grieves for the daughter who was just as much her best friend as she was her first born.

"She was so loving and caring. You could call her anytime of the day or night for any reason and she was there," Russell said.

She says the trouble began when her daughter, Colleen Russell, brought home a new boyfriend.

"From the day we met him we just knew that something wasn't quite right," Russell said.

Russell says she watched as Kenneth Manning verbally abused her once vibrant, happy child.

"She became a shell of a person. The Colleen that we knew was gone a long time ago. He took that Colleen away from us."

The trio lived together in a Malden apartment complex on Broadway St. Russell regrets leaving for the weekend last month.

"Valentine's morning I called her to wish her a happy Valentine's Day. I told her that I loved her. She said, 'I love you too, Ma.' But I noticed that her voice… I could always tell that something was wrong with Colleen," Russell said.

The following day, during a well-being check, police found the 36-year-old's body in her bedroom. Colleen Russell had been stabbed repeatedly.

Manning, the key suspect in Russell's murder, is seen on surveillance leaving the apartment. The car he stole was later found in Somerville, but nearly a month later, the 35-year-old suspect still evades police.

"My daughter opened her home, her heart, gave up her friends, her family for you. How could you so brutally take her life away from her? I just cannot make sense of it," said Russell.