The girl’s body was found three months after her disappearance in the Stockade neighborhood, with the homicide investigation into her death still open.

“It’s been absolutely brutal,” Humphrey said on Wednesday. “From the close family to the extended family, everybody has had a struggle with it. People are really coming together well now after a year, but everybody’s had to go through a nasty process. It’s hit us all differently.”

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Schenectady police recovered Humphrey’s body on Feb. 22 from the Mohawk River near the same Riverside Park area where she was last seen three months prior.

The department has scoured the river for months with assistance from state police dive teams, with the agency declaring the case a suspected homicide shortly after the body was found.

“The one-year mark is certainly a reminder to us that this vulnerable child went missing and we believe her death to be at the hands of another person,” Schenectady Police Chief Eric Clifford said on Wednesday. “We’re working hard to prove that and bring the case to the district attorney (Robert Carney). The case is being worked regularly by the investigating team and leads are still being followed.”

Carney said on Wednesday that his office is working in conjunction with Schenectady police in pursuing the case.

Humphrey was enrolled in ninth grade at Schenectady High School before going missing last November.

The family held a cell phone light vigil for Samantha at Riverside Park on Nov. 11.

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Humphrey said the family scheduled the vigil two weeks in advance of the anniversary of Samantha’s disappearance in order to help process the feelings that the milestone would bring up early, as opposed to waiting until Thanksgiving weekend.

“Of course we’ll grieve and mourn again when the day comes, but I thought it was advisable to get some of that emotional work done a couple weeks earlier if possible,” he said.

During a discussion with the city council regarding police overtime funding in an October budget meeting, Clifford told the council that the department had spent approximately $90,000 in overtime funds investigating the Humphrey case over the last year.

“In a case like this, we don’t pinch pennies,” Clifford said on Wednesday. “We do what we have to do and if that means approving overtime to get the job done, we approve it.”

Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy said the Humphrey case is front of mind for law enforcement in the city.

“It’s a tragic fact pattern,” McCarthy said of the case.” “It’s still receiving a lot of attention within the police department and the district attorney’s office.”

In October, Jeff Humphrey endorsed Republican mayoral candidate Matt Nelligan in his race against McCarthy, with Humphrey stating that he believed Nelligan would make his daughter’s case a top priority.

Following McCarthy’s election victory on Nov. 7, the mayor criticized Nelligan for politicizing the homicide case.

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“I’ve never seen anything as low as bringing the Humphrey case in,” McCarthy said on election night. “It tarnished a homicide investigation. An arrest now will always be subject to, ‘Is it being done for political reasons as opposed to the merits of a criminal investigation?’ He got shown the door by the voters today.”

Jeff Humphrey said that in light of McCarthy’s comments that he is requesting that the office of State Attorney General Letitia James take on a supervisory role in the homicide investigation.

“The election was over and he won, so I’m not even sure what he was talking about,” Humphrey said. “Had it [an arrest] happened before the election, then you could say it was political. If Nelligan had won and it had happened after, then maybe you could make that argument, but he [McCarthy] won.”

Jeff Humphrey’s father Louis Paravate paid for a pair of billboards on Erie Boulevard and Maxon Road in October that offered $10,000 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of Humphrey’s killer.

The Erie Boulevard billboard directs residents to a GoFundMe page launched by the family to raise money to pay for the billboards and to potentially increase the reward for information, with the effort raising over $3,800 to date.

The billboards taken out by the Humphrey family asked residents to call Carney’s office with any potential tips. Carney said that while his office has received an uptick in tips pertaining to the case, he would urge people to call the police tips line at 518-788-6566 if they have information.

“Anyone out in the community that has any information, we ask them to come forward and give us a call and let us know what you know,” Clifford said. “No fact or piece of evidence is insignificant in this case. We need to know everything that’s out there.”

Humphrey said that he is hopeful that an arrest in the case could provide a measure of closure for his family.

“I’m sure it will provide a little bit of closure, but I want to protect the next kid,” he said. “That’s what will let me sleep at night, is knowing that the perpetrator won’t have the opportunity to do this again.”

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