TAMPA - Ricky Childers II stood on an embankment overlooking the road where his father was murdered and hammered three homemade crosses into the sandy earth.

Ricky Childers II hammers a cross into the ground where his father was shot to death by Hank Earl Carr. CANDACE C. MUNDY /Tribune photo

After placing two wreaths Wednesday, Florida Highway Patrol troopers pay their respects to slain Detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell at the Tampa Police Memorial on Franklin Street. Among the broken glass and stray soda cans near Interstate 275, Childers, his mother, Giselle Childers, and his grandmother, Jean Turner, said a prayer.

Wednesday was the first anniversary of the murder of Tampa police Detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell and state Trooper James Crooks by Hank Earl Carr. Carr killed the men during his escape after being questioned in the shooting death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old son.

A year after one of the bloodiest days in Tampa history, the law enforcement officers were not forgotten.

``When I hammered in the last cross, I said goodbye,'' Ricky Childers II said.

Turner said it was her first visit to Elmore Avenue near the Floribraska Avenue intersection.

``It was the last place where my son took his last breath,'' she said. ``I knew I had to see it. Sometimes I think this was all a dream.''

After placing two wreaths Wednesday, Florida Highway Patrol troopers pay their respects to sl ain Detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell at the Tampa Police Memorial on Franklin Street.. BRUCE HOSKING /Tribune photo

Law enforcement officers and citizens began arriving Wednesday morning at the Tampa Police Memorial on Franklin Street. Florida Highway Patrol troopers laid two blue wreaths in honor of Bell and Childers about 10 a.m.

Bell's widow, Donna, arrived minutes later, leaving a wreath with a note: ``I love you and miss you everyday.''

Troopers held their own vigil Wednesday night to honor Crooks and 36 other troopers who have fallen in the line of duty since the highway patrol began in 1939.

In attendance was Nadine La Monte, who was Crooks' fiancee.

``I'm lonely,'' she said after the service. ``I miss Brad every day.''

She said she copes with her loss by ``talking about him a lot'' and compiling photos of him and putting them in scrapbooks.

``He's the man I love,'' she said.

The ceremony was in front of the FHP Troop C headquarters on Malcolm McKinley Drive just south of Fowler Avenue, at the future site of a granite, bronze and stainless steel monument that will pay tribute to troopers killed in the line of duty.