Kern County

Three Billboards Outside of California City

"I know the first face she saw when she was born. I have a right to know the last face she saw when she died."

Plucked right from the silver screen, a mother who is angry and frustrated is vowing to never give up on trying to find her daughters' killer, putting up three billboards in California City to get authorities' attention.

The signs, much like those seen in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," are strategically placed on a desolate desert road known as California City Boulevard, KGET reports.

In the film, a mother places three blood-red billboards along a road she knows the police chief will drive down, and which was also the place where her daughter was slain. The signs question why the local authorities have not done more to find the killer.

Real-life mom Debi Fone knows the anger well.

The signs she put up in Kern County are for her daughter, 23-year-old Deverrie Schiller, KGET reports.

"Busting grow houses is good."

"Busting killers is better."

"Deverrie Schiller, 10-92/06-16 murder unsolved."

Schiller was strangled to death two years before in a park across the street from the home she shared with her mother, KGET reports.

Fone tells KGET she put up the billboards to "piss people off." 

"I have a mouth and a way with words and I'm pissed off ... I don't want to be doing this. I don't want to have to share my pain publicly, but I ain't got a choice," she said. "I know the first face she saw when she was born. I have a right to know the last face she saw when she died."

She said she knows that the California City Police Department has limited resources.

But seeing manpower poured into seizing marijuana has her questioning why the resources are going toward that - and not finding her daughter's murderer, she told KGET.

People on Facebook have been sharing her story

Read more on KGET sitting down with detectives from the police department and questioning them on the woman's slaying, and use of police resources here.

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