MOULTRIE, Ga. — A light rain didn’t deter friends of five murder victims from gathering Friday for a candlelight vigil.

More than 150 people came together at Magnolia Sports Complex to share memories of the young people whose bodies were found in a burned house on Rossman Dairy Road last Sunday. At the end of the event, they released balloons representing each of the “angels” into the sky.

“I’m going to miss every one of them,” Clay Carter said to the group, many holding umbrellas in one hand and candles in another. “We love each other; we taught each other to enjoy life.

“It’s tough. We gotta go on somehow. We gotta live for them. That’s what they would want us to do. They want us to be successful; they want us to love.”

Carter brought smiles when he mentioned loud, hours-long musical jam sessions at the 505 Rossman Dairy Road residence where investigators on Sunday found the bodies of Jonathan Garrett Edwards Jr., Ramsey Jones Pidcock, and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; 22-year-old Jordan Shane Croft, and Alicia Brooke Norman, 20.

“We were brothers,” Carter said. “All we did was look out for each other. We were best friends from the beginning.”

Croft’s mother, Laurie Sinclair Doyon, recounted the last conversation she had with her son on May 24.

“Before he left he bent down and hugged me,” she said. “I talked to him at 10:58 that night. He said I’ve found my joy. He said, ‘I’ll see you at supper tomorrow night.’

“Jordan was my heart. We spent a lot of time together. I know they are all looking down on us now. Now he’s truly happy. We will all see them again one day.”

The sudden loss of the five has been devastating, said Jimmy Skeen, who along with Christian Butler and others organized the vigil.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has charged another acquaintance, 24-year-old Jeffrey Alan Peacock, with arson and five counts of felony murder. Police say that Peacock shot all five before setting blaze to the wood frame residence.

Investigators were suspicious from the beginning because not one of five adults in their prime escaped the burning house. Later, forensic autopsies showed that none of them had smoke in their lungs — indicating that they were dead before the fire started — and that each had bullet wounds.

“The only thing I can say about it … it’s devastating,” Skeen said. “The hurt never will end. The whole community is affected by this.”