BLOOMINGTON - Nineteen-year-old Jodi McGrew was a "fun-loving girl" who was always the first to smile, her family members remembered Wednesday. But the pregnant Hallsville woman had serious plans, including going to college and raising her baby, who was due early next year.

"She definitely had dreams all of her own," her aunt, Jodi Wallace of Bloomington, told The Pantagraph on Wednesday. "She was very, very much looking forward to being a mother."

Jodi McGrew

McGrew was pronounced dead Tuesday morning inside a LeRoy home where prosecutors allege her brother-in-law, Jason Marksteiner, sexually assaulted, beat and strangled her to death - all while his wife and three children slept in the same room.

McGrew graduated high school in Quincy and was living in Hallsville with her parents but wasn't working as she waited for her baby to be born. She was about five months pregnant, and Wallace said she had talked to her niece about how hard it would be to be a single mother.

Family members said she was expecting a baby girl and that she enjoyed baby-sitting her siblings' children. Wallace said McGrew spent Monday night at her brother-in-law's parents' house so she could help baby-sit his three children on Tuesday.

She was "one of the first people in her immediate family to graduate from high school" and planned to go to college, said her cousin, Lacie Homan of Normal, who is Wallace's daughter.

"She loved singing and sang in church," Homan said. "She had an amazing voice and she was going to go far. She always had a bright smile and always tried to make every one else feel better.

"This is such a tragedy," said Homan, adding that McGrew was "very close" to all her siblings, especially her sister, who was married to Marksteiner.

Wallace's sister, Sandy Zogg, was doing somewhat better Wednesday after having to spend part of Tuesday at a Clinton hospital after learning of her daughter's death, Wallace said.

"She's just really lost her mind over this," Wallace said.

2nd Hallsville tragedy

In Hallsville, the small DeWitt County community west of Clinton, where McGrew was living with her parents, Sandy and Mike Zogg, it was second time tragedy has touched a local family in recent years.

Katie Griffieth, 29, seven months pregnant and a mother of five, was stabbed to death by Arthur Thomas Massey in June 2006 in the Hallsville home the woman shared with her four other children. Her 8-year-old son, Kendall, was also killed by Massey, who pleaded guilty and is serving two life terms on the murder charges and 60 years in the death of the unborn child.

With the loss of two young women in just over two years, Sherry Martinez of Hallsville, like many, said Wednesday that she was shocked to hear the news.

"It's a small town and news travels pretty fast, although nobody really seems to know much about what happened yet or why it happened," she said. "There are a lot of rumors going around, and I guess we will know all of the facts in time, but you just feel so bad for the families of all those involved."

For those looking to help the family, the Jodi Nicole McGrew Memorial Fund has been established at Busey Bank, 301 E. Cedar St., LeRoy.

Kevin Barlow and Michael Freimann contributed to this report.