Missing for decades, but not forgotten
New leads found in 1989 case of Woburn girl
WOBURN - Melanie Melanson’s 35th birthday came and went yesterday. She was not there to celebrate, so family and friends gathered to remember the young woman who disappeared 20 years ago, just days before she would have turned 15.
Last evening, those closest to her told stories about her bubbly energy and distinctive laugh, and expressed hope that new leads in the two-decade-old case would help them learn what happened to her.
Under a moonlit sky, atop a hill in the parking lot of Woburn High School - where she would have graduated - law enforcement officials said they are closer than ever to finding out what happened Oct. 27, 1989, the night Melanie disappeared.
At a vigil held in her honor last night, as candles flickered in their plastic encasements, classmates and friends said they missed her constant smile and cheery disposition. They wondered what her 35th birthday would have been like, and said she was robbed of her prom and the chance to grow up and share in the joys of motherhood.
“She was upbeat, always smiling - a good kid,’’ said Donna Dellanno, whose daughter was friends with Melanie. Like many teenage girls, she liked cosmetics, boys, and music, and she knew how to make her friends laugh until their sides hurt, family and friends said.
Maria Rose Gonzalez and her sister Carmen remembered the sleepovers and always expecting to go through the various stages of life together.
“She would be celebrating,’’ Maria Rose Gonzalez said of her friend’s 35th birthday.
Melanie’s parents have both died, and so has the grandmother she lived with at the time of her disappearance, but her aunts and others are helping keep the case alive.
Earlier this fall, authorities began searching and digging in an area near Montvale Avenue in Woburn, not far from where she was last seen, based on new information.
Assistant District Attorney Marian Ryan said that recent developments, which she described as “very solid leads,’’ helped trigger the reopening of the case. “We’re closer than we’ve probably ever been before,’’ she said.
Although law enforcement and family members have been tight-lipped about the new developments, there was a sense of hope that Melanie’s remains would be found.
“We are confident that a resolution to this is forthcoming,’’ her uncle Frank Masciulli said.
Her cousin Kim Blanchard described her as having a “heart of gold,’’ but added that while a town like Woburn is filled with secrets, they cannot be kept too long. “It’s time to know the truth,’’ she said of the events that unfolded that October evening two decades ago.
“Hopefully this is going to bring us all some closure,’’ Dellanno said.