WATERVILLE – About 50 people attended a candlelight vigil Thursday night near the Colby College parking lot where a senior was abducted last month.

The vigil, sponsored by the Colby Women’s Study Group and the Waterville Rape Crisis Center, was held in Dawn Rossignol’s memory and to call attention to sexual violence, organizers said.

Rossignol, 21, of Medway, was abducted on Sept. 16 and driven to a location near the campus where she was sexually assaulted and killed in what was apparently a random act of violence.

A parolee from Utah, Edward Hackett, 47, has been charged with her murder. Hackett was released from prison last spring and was living with his parents in Vassalboro. He is currently in custody.

Rape Crisis Director Jo Etta Horn said the event was supposed to be similar to a “Take Back The Night” vigil, but students would be taking back the parking lot.

Those attending the vigil – most of them female students – gathered on a patio for a moment of silence. They then went inside to a common area of the dormitory to share their thoughts.

The Hillside parking lot is one of several security concerns that will be examined by campus officials and an outside consultant in the coming weeks, said Colby College spokesman Stephen Collins.

Thursday night’s gathering was advertised on the Colby College campus and through e-mails and telephone calls to people and interested groups around the state. Horn said that while Rossignol’s attacker was a stranger and the kidnapping and assault was a random act, the reality is that most rapes are committed by someone who knows the victim.

“Typically, that’s not what happens,” Horn said of the Rossignol case. “The truth is that 86 percent of people know their assailant in this state. The myth is that it is always a stranger.”