A mother whose daughter was raped and murdered 20 years ago will travel to South Dakota later this week to see the execution of the man who killed her, thanks to some help from social media. YNN's Brooke Selby has more on how the internet made their journey possible.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. -- "Love of my life, was and still is," Tina Curl said. "She was a good kid, she was bright in school, she just didn't make it long enough."

Twenty years ago, Tina and Dave Curl experienced every parents' worst nightmare.

"It tore me up, it did then and it still does," Curl said. "She was nine when she was raped and murdered."

The Curls were living in South Dakota when their daughter, Becky O'Connell, was kidnapped from a convenience store by Donald Moeller in May of 1990. Moeller was convicted in 1992, but the State Supreme overturned it. He was convicted again in 1997. An execution date was set this past July.

Curl said, "He stopped his appeal about the lethal injection, so they moved it up."

Curl knew she wanted to be at the execution, but with less than a month's notice, the trip to South Dakota would be too financially draining. That's when her neighbor and the rest of the world jumped in to help

"My neighbor set up the Facebook and the donations came in," Curl said.

Curl says donations came in from as far as Alaska and they brought in $4,000 to help them make the trip but the Curls are unable to fly, so instead, they'll drive more than 1,400 miles to South Dakota. With Tina's heart disease, the drive was the only way they were going to make it. Once they arrive, they plan to visit the site where Becky was murdered.

"Dave's going to play his guitar and sing a couple of songs," Curl said. "With everything that's going on in this world, it's incredible that there's still good people out there."