A boarded-up and vandalized old school is not a typical site for a memorial, but it's where Vanessa Brooks has come every year to honour her late sister for a decade and a half.

St. Pat's-Alexandra School in Halifax's north end is now closed and the site is marked for redevelopment, but the school was in operation 15 years ago. Students were ferried out on the afternoon of Monday, May 11, 2009, after a body was discovered in a window well.

It was 36-year-old Tanya Brooks. She was last seen alive …