Birth and Death at Prom, and New Jersey Town Reels

And the music played on.

Amid the pink and black decorations, the corsages, the happy talk of times past, impending graduation and summer at the beach, the tall young woman in the dark flowing dress laughed and danced with her date at her senior prom.

But, authorities said, she had a terrible secret. Earlier, she had slipped into a bathroom, given birth to her baby and left the infant, dead, in a trash can.

“She was sitting near me and my friends, talking and laughing,” said student Jamie Dries. “She looked like she was having fun.”

Prosecutors said Monday they were contemplating whether to charge Melissa Drexler, 19, a senior at the Lacey Township High School, with murder or aggravated manslaughter.

In a world seemingly numb to tragedy, where young mothers have abandoned their infants or murdered them, police and townspeople in the small New Jersey shore community say what sets this case apart is the behavior of Drexler, who returned to her prom, danced with her date and even asked the disc jockey to play a song.

“And the deejay’s like, ‘What song?’ And she’s like, ‘ “Unforgiven,” by Metallica,’ ” said Jef Henninger, 18, a senior who said he had been talking to the deejay when the girl made the request.

“New blood joins the earth,” the song by the heavy metal rock group opens, “and quickly he’s subdued.”

“The town is in shock,” said former mayor John Parker of Forked River, N.J., where Drexler and her family reside.

“There is a sense of sorrow on the part of many in my parish concerning what happened,” said the Rev. Roy Minnix, pastor of the Village Lutheran Church. “There is also a desire to withhold any kind of judgment or any kind of response until more facts are gathered.”

Assistant Monmouth County prosecutor Robert Honecker said, “The medical examiner has made some initial determinations. The baby was alive during the birthing process. . . . The baby’s heart was beating and the baby was alive at some point between the delivery and when the boy was found.”

“The medical examiner must determine, could the baby have existed independent of its mother?” Honecker said. He said blood analysis and microscopic tests still to be conducted by the coroner would be crucial as to whether charges are filed.

Minnix said, “It is difficult to make sense out of it. One of the parishioners . . . was going to ask for a prayer, but she didn’t know what to ask because she couldn’t sort it out in her own mind.”

“We had a meeting last night. Several people were discussing it. They were incredulous that the student could go on with business as usual and enjoy the prom like nothing had happened,” said the Rev. Robert Oliver, pastor of the Forked River Baptist Church.

” . . . This is a small community. There was a sudden realization the problems of the big cities were right here,” Oliver said.

Parker, however, cautioned against a rush to judgment.

He described the high school senior as shy and well mannered who came from a nice family--”middle of the road economically, not a person whom you would think this would ever happen to.”

“You should be a little compassionate with this one,” the former mayor said, refusing to elaborate. “This case is a little bit different. Melissa herself isn’t peculiar, but the situation she was in was peculiar. There are always mitigating circumstances.”

Adding to the mystery was the family’s silence. Both Drexler and her parents declined comment.

More than 350 students, teachers and chaperons attended the prom held at the Garden Manor Catering Hall, a structure with tall arching windows and an ornate roof with a crown that looks as if it could decorate the top of a wedding cake.

“The kids were singing. They had a couple of solos,” said William Quist, a member of the school board who attended the dance with his wife. Quist said he was told during the prom what had happened.

Police and two ambulances arrived after a maintenance worker discovered a 6-pound, 6-ounce full-term baby with light brown hair, no birth defects and no fractures in a bathroom trash can. Most students knew nothing of heroic efforts to revive the infant by emergency workers and the health teacher chaperoning the dance.

The prosecutor said the student had entered the restroom to touch up her makeup with a friend shortly after arriving at the dance. Drexler stayed behind. Her friend returned about a half hour later to look for Drexler. By then, the young woman had given birth, wrapped the body in a trash can liner, dumped it and cleaned herself up. The friend did not realize what had happened.

Honecker said even Drexler’s prom date didn’t know she was pregnant, nor did he know what had transpired in the bathroom.

The infant was declared dead at a local hospital about two hours after it was discovered.

“How could a young woman bring a child to full-term pregnancy and the family not know about it?” Parker asked, voicing a common question Monday in Forked River, a community mixing middle-class and blue-collar families near the New Jersey shore.

Prosecutors described Drexler as 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds, and people who know her say she appeared slim as ever at the prom.

“People are basically in shock. It’s a small town and a small school,” added Sara Morrison, who graduated from the high school last year and attends college.

“I work in a local convenience store. People were coming in and saying they couldn’t believe it. It’s pretty amazing how you could have a baby and then dance.”

Special correspondent Lisa Meyer in New York and the Washington Post contributed to this story.