She was a little girl who spent hours and hours playing with her family’s cats and dogs.

She was a teenager who listened to wolves howling in the Canadian forest and fell in love with them.

She was an Ohio college student who majored in natural resources and dreamed of working outside with animals.

Finally, as a young woman, Peggy Park became a Florida wildlife officer in Pinellas County.

She searched for eagles, watched for snakes and grappled with alligators. But her killer was a 19-year-old man.

Martin E. Grossman was on probation for burglary and grand larceny, having gotten out of prison five months earlier. He and a friend were driving a van through a rural area of northeastern Pinellas, planning to shoot a stolen Luger handgun. Park pulled over the van and a struggle resulted. Grossman, apparently trying to avoid arrest and another prison term, shot her in the head with her .357 Magnum. She was 26.

That was Dec. 13, 1984. Now, more than 25 years later, one final chapter remains. Grossman is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. today for the murder he committed a quarter-century ago.

Her mother, also names Peggy, is 79 and has been told by a cardiologist not to travel from Ohio to Florida for the execution.

But she’s coming. So are Park’s brother and sister. They’re grieving and want closure. But they also want something else in the week they are scheduled to watch Grossman die.

They want people to know the story of a daughter, sister and wildlife officer named Peggy Park.

“I don’t want Peggy ever forgotten,” her mother said.

Peggy Park grew up in the Columbus area. She played saxophone in the marching band and oboe in the symphonic band, liked art, loved horses, wrote stories, read a lot and watched The Carol Burnett Show.

She went to Ohio State University.

After graduating with her degree in natural resources, Peggy Park was excited to apply for a job as a Florida wildlife officer.

Park described her career choice in a St. Petersburg Times interview the week before she died: "l decided when I was 12 that I wanted to be a park ranger. It will never be a job."

She often worked alone, knowing she might sometimes approach a drug runner or poacher who could be armed.

This did not dissuade the 5-foot-2 Park. “She loved the law—enforcement aspect of it,” sister Betsy said. 'I have a suspicion she was a little bit of an adrenaline junkie."

On that day in 1984, Grossman, 19, and his friend Thane Nathan Taylor, 17, planned to spend time shooting a stolen handgun in a rural area of northeastern Pinellas.

Park stopped the van they were driving and discovered the gun.

Grossman struggled with Park, with Taylor helping. Grossman wrestled away Park’s gun and shot her in the head.

The two men escaped but were caught on Christmas Day.

Taylor was sentenced to seven years in prison.

For more than 25 years the Parks have struggled with the pain.

Peggy’s death weighed on her father. He had helped her move to Florida and felt somewhat responsible.

Grossman “took my daughter from me, but he also took my husband. My husband became very depressed, clinically depressed actually,” Peggy’s mother said. He died in 2000.

Now, after living with this criminal case for almost as long as they lived with Peggy, the Parks are preparing to witness the execution.

It’s not about vengeance, they say.

“It’s to see it finished,” Betsy said. “It’s for Peggy, it’s for my dad and it’s for us to know it’s done.

“I take no pleasure in somebody being executed,” she said. But again, he had a chance to make choices. And he made the wrong ones"