HANCOCK – Christine Thornton’s family wants people to know the details of her death, but they also want people to know about her life.

Thornton’s remains were found in Wyoming in 1982, five years after she went missing in August 1977. Last month, the prosecutor in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, charged convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala with her death.

Alcala is on death row in California after his conviction in 1980 and 2010 for five murders in that state. In 2012, he was convicted of two murders in the state of New York. Some law enforcement officials have said he could be responsible for up to 130 murders going back to the 1970s.

Thornton was born Nov. 7, 1948. She attended Hancock Central High School and Michigan Technological University. She was pregnant at the time of her death.

Her funeral will be conducted at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Church of the Resurrection in Hancock.

One of Thornton’s sisters, Mary Ann Nimmo, said Christine left the Hancock area in 1975. The last time she saw Christine was in 1974 when she came to visit Nimmo in Arizona.

“She was a person who enjoyed adventures, travel and meeting people,” Nimmo said.

Before Christine went missing, Nimmo said she was living in San Antonio, Texas, for a short time.

“She wasn’t there very long,” she said.

According to information from the Sweetwater County Prosecutor’s Office, Thornton and a boyfriend went to Wyoming to pan for gold, but when they got there the two argued and separated.

A rancher in Wyoming found Thornton’s remains, but she wasn’t identified until 2015 after some of her relatives submitted DNA samples to Wyoming law enforcement representatives.

The possibility that Thornton could be a victim of Alcala was suggested after she was identified in a collection of about 200 photographs taken by Alcala. In one of the photographs, Thornton is sitting on a motorcycle later identified as belonging to Alcala. The landscape in the background of the photo was later determined to be in Sweetwater County. Other people in the 200 photographs are also suspected of being Alcala’s victims.

The Sweetwater County prosecutor is intending to prosecute Alcala for Thornton’s murder, but California court officials have to decide if he will be extradited to Wyoming.

Nimmo said her family members want him to stand trial in Wyoming.

“That’s the whole point of this investigation, to bring him to justice,” she said.

Nimmo said she wants people to remember the good things about Christine’s life.

“We want to be able to celebrate her life and mourn her passing,” she said.