The following letter was written for USA TODAY by Maria Farmer to her best friend and hero, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 41, who died by suicide on April 25, 2025. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call, text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

I’ve missed you every day. It's been a year where you’ve changed everything. Your love will be eternal, and you would be so deeply proud of your family for continuing your vital legacy.

Your family and survivors are finally being heard. My sister, Annie Farmer, helped pass a law to force the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files. Predators such as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are finally being held accountable for what they did to you, and a video that included you was projected onto Windsor Castle's wall. You did something no one else did. And every day, your sister survivors work tirelessly around the clock to ensure this nightmare doesn’t happen again.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that any of this has actually happened. We both know that talking about something, saying it out loud, can be the action that makes an event actually feel real. For so many years, you were the person who listened. You witnessed my life, and that meant it was real, and reality. It was a rare gift for someone who’s spent so many years ignored and unheard.

In 1996, I contacted the New York City Police Department and FBI to tell the........

© USA TODAY