The case of Trinity Love Jones, the 9-year-old girl whose body was found in a duffel bag near a suburban trail in Hacienda Heights, has transfixed Southern Californians. But as Times reporter Jose A. Del Real reported, her death is far from the only such tragedy.

He talked to parents who are trying to change that:

When LaWanda Hawkins heard about Trinity Love Jones last week, she thought of her son, Reginald, who was killed in 1995 at age 19. She never received any answers about his murder.

Today, Hawkins is one of many advocates who belong to an informal network in Southern California dedicated to raising community awareness about young homicide victims. The founder of Justice for Murdered Children, a nonprofit organization, Hawkins hopes public pressure and media attention will guarantee thorough investigations by law enforcement. More than anything, she wants the families to feel supported.

“We want the community as a whole to get more involved with these homicides,” she said. “We have to hold them accountable. We thought the system would do it for us, but we have to take our own steps.”

Last week news came that Trinity was found dead. After a frenzied search for information by authorities, who ruled her death a homicide, Trinity was identified Sunday night, and two people of interest have been detained, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“I’m devastated each time,” Hawkins said. “We don’t want any more people to join this organization.”

In California last year, 49 missing children were found dead, according to the California Department of Justice. About 77,000 children were reported missing in 2018, of which about 60,000 were located by law enforcement or returned to their families on their own.

Eliseo Montoya is another advocate who has helped spread the word about missing children like Trinity. Montoya has managed a Facebook group called “Runaway and Missing Children in California,” which culls posters of missing children for distribution on social media. He began the group, he said, after his 15-year-old daughter ran away from home.

He eventually found his daughter, safe, he said.

But Montoya, who was living in Palmdale at the time, expressed his belief that children from underprivileged neighborhoods and minority communities — “kids from the hood, like me” — rarely command the same urgency as those from more affluent backgrounds. Montoya said that motivated him to continue.

“That’s basically all my page is, an area for people just to share,” he said. “I’m a 58-year-old man, and this stuff makes me cry. I’m supposed to be tough and a soldier. So I send a message of prayer and hope, and I tell the parents not to give up.”

Hawkins said she resolved to transform her sense of helplessness into action after her son died.

“I started running into too many people who were in the same predicament I was in,” she said. “I will never get over it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.