EPPING — Carolyn Lodge brought a chocolate birthday cake to a memorial that sits under a tree along the quiet dirt road leading to the farm where her son was brutally murdered at the hands of Sheila LaBarre.

Wednesday would have been murder victim Kenneth Countie's 31st birthday.

“I'll never be free from this. It plays in my mind 24/7. He was an important part of my life and he always will be,” the Billerica, Mass., mother said as she marked her son's birthday with the chocolate cake covered in chocolate frosting — his favorite.

Lodge also placed an arrangement of red roses along with an image of a smiling Countie engraved on a plaque given by a high school friend at the site. A message on the plaque reads, “Always on my mind. Forever in my heart.”

“I figured for his birthday I'd put it out,” said Lodge, who visits the memorial on Red Oak Hill Lane regularly and keeps it maintained six years after LaBarre abused and killed Countie, 24, and another man, Michael Deloge, at her farm and then burned their bodies. LaBarre is now serving life in prison for the killings.

Lodge has been allowed to keep the memorial in place by the new owner who purchased LaBarre's farm at an auction.

Thieves have stolen items from time to time, including a family photo taken in England and a sign that was ripped off the tree that read, “Someone I loved was murdered,” but for the most part the memorial has been left alone.

Occasionally, Lodge will find something new left at the memorial, like ceramic figurines of a snowman, a little boy and a miniature cottage. She said she never touches the items left anonymously.

Countie's hockey stick that his mother gave him is now broken, but the two pieces remain at the site along with his two favorite hats, which hang on a stake.

“He just loved his sports,” Lodge recalled.

Lodge has also created a memorial site in front of her house with a tree and flowers.

“But this is where he was last,” she said, pointing to the memorial on Red Oak Hill Lane. “Not at my house, not anywhere else.”

While the memorial has given her a place to grieve, Lodge said she feels she'll never be able to move on. She has long claimed that Epping police failed to protect her son and should have acted when they saw him showing signs of abuse days before he was killed.

A wrongful death suit filed against police pointed to an incident at the Epping Walmart on March 17, 2006, in which police were called to the store after LaBarre, who was pushing a sickly Countie in a wheelchair, became belligerent.

Police responded and found Countie with visible cuts, burns and bruises on his body. Lodge has insisted that police never should have allowed Countie to remain with LaBarre. Lawyers for the officers argued that they had no way of knowing that LaBarre would kill Countie and that they weren't to blame. A judge dismissed the suit and efforts to appeal to the state Supreme Court also failed.

“This didn't have to be,” Lodge said.

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Jason Schreiber may be reached at jschreiber@newstote.com.