RIPON — Les Weidman, public safety liaison to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will be among the speakers at a remembrance ceremony for missing Ripon woman Mary Morino-Starkey.

The event, set for Saturday, Dec. 17, at the Ripon Fire Station No. 2 on Murphy Road, is also a celebration of what would have been Morino-Starkey's 47th birthday on Dec. 14.

The 11 a.m. program will attended by members of the large Morino family of Ripon and Escalon as well as other invited speakers. Among them will be Pastor Rodney Landreth, chaplain of the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department; Morino-Starkey's cousin Chuck Olsen of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's S.T.A.R.S.; her childhood friend Kathy Woodwson who is a teacher with the Ripon Unified School District; Pastor Victor Berg-Haglan of Saron Lutheran Church in Escalon who will give a spiritual message; and Rick Jones, a 5th-degree Certified Master Instructor at West Coast Martial Arts in Modesto who will speak on the subject of personal protection and safety awareness.

The family is inviting everyone to join them in this remembrance for Morino-Starkey who was reported missing in June when she left her house with the man who reportedly wanted to purchase a boat that she had for sale.

The man, Roy Gerald Smith, 43, of Manteca, is now the suspect in the disappearance of Morino-Starkey who is presumed dead. Listed as a convicted high-risk sex offender in a Megan's Law web site, Smith will be arraigned Monday in the San Joaquin County Superior Court in Stockton on charges of murder and felony grand auto theft. Morino-Starkey's car was found days after she vanished in the parking lot at Franzia Winery where the suspect worked in maintenance. Surveillance cameras at the winery showed the suspect driving the missing woman's car to work the day she vanished.

Testimony given at the preliminary hearing for the suspect also indicated that his wife told investigators she saw the body of a woman in the bathtub of their apartment in Manteca the day of Morino-Starkey's disappearance.

Morino-Starkey's mother, Olivia Morino, who last saw her daughter driving off with the suspect after shaking hands with him, testified in court that Smith was the man she saw driving off with her daughter following in her car reportedly to go to a bank to get the money for the boat.

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