A North Texas man is on a mission to weld crosses from scratch to honor murder victims. 

CBS News Texas first met him in 2022 when he made a cross for the Uvalde school shooting victims. Now he's on a deeply personal mission to bring attention to a gruesome homicide.

Mission to Honor Victims

It's a blazing hot day on a Mineral Wells ranch with an even hotter mission for welder Michael Collins.

"We are doing a cross three times the size of anything I've ever done," Collins said.

The cross is 25-and-a-half feet tall.

"She hit me really hard. That smile, it was so contagious," Collins said.

Cross for Emily Pike

The smile belonged to 14-year-old Emily Pike. Collins is making the cross for her.

"I knew I needed to do something to be a voice for Emily. Indigenous women and children do not get the coverage that they should, that they deserve," Collins said.

Pike vanished from a group home in Mesa, Arizona, in late January. Her dismembered body was found two weeks later.

"I just hope each and every cross can help the communities heal the families," Collins said. "This one is going to San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona."

Pike is one of more than 5,000 Native American girls and women who are missing or murdered each year, according to the National Crime Information Center. The back of Pike's cross will be painted with the letters "MMIW." It stands for missing and murdered Indigenous women and hits close to home for Collins.

"My mother's grandmother was full-blooded Comanche," Collins said. "I think she would be proud of this."

Personal Connection to Mission

Collins has a highly personal reason for making the crosses and one that helps him identify with the families who lost a loved one.

"It's like living with an amputation. It's like living with a heart the size of a marble," Collins said.

Collins' pain comes from losing his own son, Brady, in an accident five years ago.

"About four months after his accident, he came to me in a dream. He said, 'I want you to build me this,'" Collins said.

Collins built his first cross for Brady.

"I've learned not to just go down there and cry," Collins said. "I go down there, and I thank God for every minute that I had with my son, the 26 years that I did have."

Community Healing Efforts

Pike's cross is the seventh one he has made. Welder Clark Brooks helps with the crosses.

"It's like a ministry," Brooks said. "It's to give people peace, a place that people can go and remember, remember their loved ones, and it comes from the heart."

The cross will have a letters to heaven box to help the community heal.

"It's going to have 30 red handprints and the tribal badge. Her name will be in pink with very large letters. MMIW will be painted on it," Brooks said.

"Maybe they'll find out who done it. Maybe they'll get a couple leads on who done this," Collins said.

Investigators haven't caught Pike's killer. Her voice may have been silenced early, but her spirit speaks loudly, thanks to the man with a gift for turning metal into a mission.

The mission will grow even bigger through a new nonprofit called "Brady's Love Cross Ministry."

Collins' next cross will be for Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl raped and murdered in Houston last year by two undocumented immigrants.