"Police seek supplier of alcohol at bonfire; Teen died near Norfolk party site" by Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | October 30, 2008
Norfolk police are conducting a criminal investigation to determine who supplied alcoholic drinks earlier this month for a group of King Philip High School students who partied around a bonfire at an abandoned airport, one of whom apparently drowned in a marshy area that night.
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"We're looking for information on who might have supplied alcohol, if it was supplied at all at that party," Police Chief Charles Stone said yesterday afternoon. He added that the investigation began last week, shortly after 17-year-old Taylor Meyer's body was found about 100 yards from the site of the party.
Investigators said that Meyer had attended a homecoming football game and later went with friends to the abandoned airport, where some of the students drank around a bonfire. It was not clear whether Meyer had been drinking. At about 11 p.m., she told the group she was calling for a ride home and left the gathering.
A cellphone call she made to a relative at 10:57 p.m. was garbled, either because of poor reception or wind or because she was not speaking clearly, authorities said. She then apparently walked from the woods where the students were partying into a treacherous swamp area. Her body was found Oct. 20 after an intensive two-day search.
This is so sad and tragic. No young person deserves to lose their life this way.
So PLEASE DON'T DRINK, kids!!!
The Norfolk district attorney's office released a statement last week on Meyer's death, stating "While a final cause of death has not been issued, since some standard medical testing has not been completed, the examination found no evidence of trauma or foul play in her death. The available evidence is consistent with death by drowning."
The medical examiner is awaiting toxicology results that would determine whether she had alcohol in her bloodstream at the time of her death. Stone said the penalty for a conviction of providing alcohol to minors is up to a $2,000 fine and one year in jail. --more--"
