DA: No parents at party before death
ANDOVER - Investigators said yesterday that no parents were home the night teenagers held an all-night party that preceded the mysterious death of a 16-year-old Wellesley girl, who apparently wandered away from the house into the cold, wearing only shorts and a jacket.
Carrie Kimball Monahan, a spokeswoman for the Essex County district attorney's office, would not release any other details of the case in the death of Elizabeth Mun, saying the investigation is ongoing.
"The kids at the house noticed she wasn't there and went outside to look for her, and they couldn't find her and called police," Monahan said, describing the investigation as "very active" and "very high level."
After a massive search involving a police helicopter, investigators found Mun at about 10:40 a.m. Sunday, roughly five hours after she is believed to have left the party. She was facedown in a partially frozen brook in a wooded area about 200 yards away from the house where the party was held. Yesterday, officials performed an autopsy, the results of which have not been released.
The case has sparked a wave of anguish and questions about how the promising junior at Concord Academy came to her death. But authorities, school officials, and parents have maintained a strict public silence even as speculation swirls about whether drugs or alcohol were consumed at the event.
"Right now, we're continuing to investigate and interview witnesses and attempting to gather evidence," said Lieutenant James Hashem of the Andover Police, who declined to speak further about the case.
Deepening the mystery was a haunting poem published in an online teen magazine that describes a seaside crime scene and a woman "drowning in her sorrows." Officials at the magazine, Teen Voices Online, said Mun had written the poem in 2005 when she was a student at Dana Hall School in Wellesley.
At Concord Academy yesterday, the campus was staked with orange signs reading "Private Property," and students had been instructed not to speak with the media, and not to leave campus.
In a statement posted on the Concord Academy website, Jake Dresden, the head of school, said regularly scheduled classes would resume this week "because structure and normalcy can be comforting."
"Right now, the CA community is in mourning, focusing on the memories we have of a creative young woman, an exceptional math student, a gifted photographer, a dedicated athlete, a warm and witty friend," Dresden wrote. The death echoed the drowning in October of a 17-year-old girl from Plainville, Taylor Meyer, who was found in a marsh after wandering away from an underage drinking party. Police later charged a 19-year-old with providing alcohol to Meyer, who was a senior at King Philip Regional High School.
On Monday, Mun's family released a statement describing Elizabeth's passions. She enjoyed traveling, photography, and playing sports such as field hockey, lacrosse, golf, and figure skating, the statement said.
She had hoped to attend Brown University, the alma mater of her mother, Sue Lee, an orthodontist in Framingham. Her father, Edward C. Mun, is a gastric bypass surgeon at Brigham and Women's and Faulkner hospitals.
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. 