A cigarette butt, some earrings, bits of broken glass, a girl’s sock and a small bit of dark hair tucked inside a Whidbey General Hospital envelope.

Patty Rankin took the hair and pulled it to her nose, trying to catch the scent of Aussie Shampoo, her daughter Tinna Ann Rankin’s favorite brand.

Patty Rankin started to cry, then gave everything a last look and put it all in a little wood jewelry box.

“If you knew Tinna, you knew love,” she said.

Tinna Rankin was killed in a one-car crash on Langley Road on March 19, 2005. With almost a year gone by since Rankin’s death, her family has grown increasingly angry and frustrated that Jace Richard Bahl, the driver of the car, has not been charged with a crime.

Early in the investigation of the crash, the State Patrol said alcohol was a factor in the accident.

“My heart’s breaking and I can’t get it to stop. My baby’s gone,” her mother said.

Island County Prosecuting Attorney Greg Banks said the State Patrol is still investigating the crash.

“There are numerous reasons the case has not been filed yet,” Banks said, adding that those reasons have been shared with the Rankin family.

“It is certainly understandable that on the anniversary of their daughter’s death that they would be upset that Bahl has not been charged. We all have a great deal of sympathy for them,” Banks said. “I can imagine no worse tragedy than losing a child in a senseless car wreck.”

There has to be enough evidence to file charges, Banks explained. “In spite of what lay people may think, this case is not an open and shut case. To that end, we have asked the State Patrol to conduct additional investigation and are awaiting their reports.”

Still, Banks said the prosecutor’s office should have contacted the family immediately.

That didn’t happen because the case wasn’t referred to the prosecutor’s office until several months after the crash.

“We weren’t even aware it existed until it showed up in our box some time after the accident,” Banks said.

Banks called the family this week to apologize, and said later he has changed the procedures for handling any non-property crimes that his office receives. Victims will be contacted quickly.

Wednesday would have been Tinna’s 25th birthday. Pictures of Tinna hang on almost every wall at the Rankin home; her clothes still hang in a closet, her shoes lined up underneath. Patty lets herself laugh when she sees all the shoes.

“Besides being a beauty queen, her soul made her even prettier,” her mother said. “That girl was all heart. She made life worth living with that smile of hers.”

Tinna Rankin was an older sister to Katie and Cari, and helped raise the pair for a time when her mother fought an addiction to drugs.

Family came first, and friends were forever.

If Tinna liked a song, she liked it loud. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were her favorite, and she could listen to a song a thousand times and still want to hear it again.

Tinna could turn it up, too, with her sense of humor, a quick comeback, or just by saying something she wanted said — and loud.

“She was so strong, she was such a good girl. We talk about her every day,” Rankin said.

The family has created a memorial near the spot of the crash. They would like to put up a roadside sign, but Rankin said she has been told no more than once by the county’s road department.

Patty Rankin vividly recalls the night of the crash. She was at her mom’s in Everett when Cari came to tell her about the accident.

“I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard the car pull up. I opened the door and Cari said, ‘Mom, Tinna…’”

According to the State Patrol, Bahl was behind the wheel when the 1991 Acura Integra left the road and hit an embankment near Tree Frog and Hollyhock lanes early that Saturday morning. Rankin was killed instantly.

Her boyfriend, John Sutton, was in the back seat. Along with Bahl, he was hurt in the crash and airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Sutton left early, in a wheelchair, so he could make it to his girlfriend’s funeral.

Rankin said Tinna and Johnny would have been married by now with a family on the way. When the couple was together, no one else existed.

“When people saw them, they said all they did was sparkle,” Rankin said.

It also hurts, Rankin said, to see how Sutton has suffered. Some have unfairly blamed him for Tinna’s death, she said, even though he wasn’t driving.

“People put that boy through hell,” she said. “He’ll never be the same. He said he heard her last breath.”

“That was his first love, his real love,” said Margaret White, Sutton’s mother. “He would have given her the sun, the moon.”

Amid almost constant calls to the State Patrol, the Rankin family still waits for word that something will happen and a criminal case will move forward.

“Not a night goes by we don’t lose it,” she said. “My girls will never be the same. We cry every day.”

“There’s a lot of people in the community who have been hurt by this, a lot of heavy hearts,” Rankin said.