The Prom Mom & Other Stories An Anthology of True Crime

By Pete Yoder

An anthology of True Crime detailing the exploits of murderous women, young and old. This anthology is headlined by "The Prom Mom". If ever there was a case where the facts tell just a fraction of the story, then it is the one of Melissa Drexler.The bare details -teenage woman attends the school prom, gives birth to a baby, murders it, and returns to the dance floor - suggest a woman of such callousness that she should still be incarcerated twenty years after her crime. But there is so much more to this story than the tip of the iceberg presented above. Below the surface exists a body of deadly details that suggest such a crime is deserving of forensic examination, not just of the bloody and tragic evidence that was tried in court, but in a way that might offer us a deeper insight into the reasons why such horrors can occur.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201743758

Book preview

THE PROM MOM AND OTHER STORIES

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PETE YODER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MELISSA DREXLER

DEFRANCISCO SISTERS

BEVERLY ALLITT

GWEN HENDRICKS

KIM HRICKO

DANA SUE GRAY

BELLE GUNNESS

CAROL SUMNER

ROSIE ALFARO

VERNICE BALLENGER

MYRA HINDLEY

MELISSA DREXLER

The Tragedy of the ‘Prom Mom’

If ever there was a case where the facts tell just a fraction of the story, then it is the one of Melissa Drexler.

The bare details –teenage woman attends the school prom, gives birth to a baby, murders it, and returns to the dance floor – suggest a woman of such callousness that she should still  be incarcerated twenty years after her crime.  But there is so much more to this story than the tip of the iceberg presented above.  Below the surface exists a body of deadly details that suggest such a crime is deserving of forensic examination, not just of the bloody and tragic  evidence that was tried in court, but in a way that might offer us a deeper insight into the reasons why such horrors can occur.

6th June 1997 marked the date of the Lacey Township High School prom, and Melissa was determined to attend with her boyfriend, John Lewis.  She had been aware that something was wrong for a while now, three or four months at least.  Her periods had stopped, she had felt ‘different.’  Weight was appearing on her, and she had taken to wearing baggier clothes to hide it.  Looks were important to Melissa.  She was not the most confident or out-going girl and she didn’t want anything to put in danger her relationship with the boy she had been dating for two years.

And at the back of her mind lay another fear.  A fear that her body changes were not just a late onset effect of adolescence, but that in fact she could be pregnant.  Yet the teenage brain has a remarkable capability to compartmentalise problems.  The frontal cortex of the brain is, relative to the other physical developments of the body, still that of a child. While the body has grown, and is effectively an adult form – especially for girls in their later teens – the brain remains juvenile.

It explains why teenagers do not see danger.  Why they drive too quickly when, with thought, they would slow down and place themselves, other road users and pedestrians in less danger.  It explains why they might binge drink, or take drugs.  It explains why they can become so body conscious that they place themselves in physical danger by eating an imbalanced diet, or not eating at all.

And the slow development of the frontal cortex also explains why teenagers fail to read situations, to interpret danger or disapproval.  If we think about it, this developmental gap might well be the result of tens of thousands of years of evolution.  Consider the way human babies differ from those born in the wild of the animal kingdom.  A young deer is delivered, and within a few minutes will be able to stand.  It will take months before the human baby can do this.  Within a year of being born many young animals will be independent of their mothers; but for humans, it takes fifteen, eighteen years.  There are plenty who argue that children never become fully independent!

Some trains of thought explain this through the fact that most animal behaviour is instinctive, with little learned from watching elders.  Humans, though, have developed differently.  In every known society, mankind has developed an educational process for their young involving other members of the society, often parents and also, in modern society, schools.  Institutions set up specifically for turning children into adult members of society.  Something that failed with Melissa Drexler.

But the young adult needs to break away from parental control at some point.  And it is the slow development of the frontal cortex that allows this.  Put bluntly, when teenagers are acting rebelliously, they simply do not know what they are doing.  Behaviour that seems ill considered has, in fact, not been considered at all.

For Melissa Drexler, the logical side of her brain told her that she was pregnant – her schooling had taught her enough to identify that, even the private Catholic one she attended.  The teenage side denied the physical fact.  Rather like an ugly pimple you try to forget, so the baby growing inside her was, whenever possible, dismissed and ignored.  It seems certainly the case that for Melissa, the child inside her simply did not exist.  Other than in the darkest, loneliest moments, when the thoughts that she could be pregnant must have pushed their way through her mind’s defences, there was no baby.

There were social reasons for this as well as psychological ones.  It is often believed that children who commit awful crimes have been damaged by abusive parents, or have been effectively abandoned, left to develop a feral existence in a drug filled or alcohol flooded home.  Certainly, such conditions are going to play their dangerous part in the social development of children forced to endure such conditions.  But that was not the case with Melissa, the apple of her parents’ eyes. 

She was raised in one of the most affluent parts of New Jersey.  Forked River is an overwhelmingly white, middle class district.  It is countrified, full of lakes and rivers.  The level of poverty here, such as exists anywhere in the US, is spectacularly low.  And in any case, there was no deprivation in the Dressler family.

The father, John, was a worker in the computer industry, making a good living.  The mother worked in a bank, but Marie Dressler never allowed her career to get in the way of bringing up her only child, surrounding her with love and affection.  Such was the adoration enveloping her that Melissa had no need to grow up.

Her friend Jim Botsacos described her family as ‘almost too nice.’  Indeed, Melissa’s parents were the kind who wanted to do everything for their daughter.  They bought her a car, they paid to run it, they bought her clothes and gave her spending money.  Not only did she not have to get a part time job, but they did not want her to do so.  Debbie Jacobson is the mother of a former classmate of Melissa who knew the family.  She described the eighteen year old girl as ‘a child emotionally.  She didn’t make decisions on her own about things.’

Then there is the religious factor in Melissa Drexler’s life.  Clearly, as a girl who became pregnant, she was involved in a sexual relationship with her son’s father, boyfriend John.  Melissa came from a strongly Catholic background.  Contraception is not permitted for followers of that particular branch of Christianity, although we do not know whether Melissa and her partner were trying to practise safe sex.  Abortion is another unacceptable option for a Catholic to take.  Again, we do not know whether this was something Melissa considered; all that we know is that the baby was carried until its birth.

Her parents were unaware that their daughter was pregnant.  The way in which they stood by her after her crime was committed suggests that they would certainly have done the same had Melissa revealed her pregnancy to them.  But she did not.  She dealt with the physical manifestations.  She hid the truth.  And in that, perhaps as much from herself as from her friends, her teachers and her parents.

It is possible to imagine the pressure felt by the young girl.  Would she have felt deeply embarrassed by confessing to her parents that she was pregnant?  Doing so involves admitting to participation in a sexual relationship.  Perhaps she felt that she would have let them down.  Perhaps she simply denied the truth. 

At her trial, it came out that Melissa had a learning difficulty.  While this was not in any severe enough to impact on her ability to function in society, it almost certainly contributed to an absence of self-esteem.  She was a girl lacking in confidence.  At school, she was seen as a very quiet; shy and aloof from her peers.  For all that, they regarded her as fundamentally kind.  Not a characteristic that might come to one’s mind when thinking of a psychotic child killer.  But she did have a livelier side. Jim Botsacos explained that, for Melissa’s true personality to come out, she had to get to know somebody.  She had to feel comfortable in their company.

‘When you get to know her,’ he said, ‘she can be exciting.  She likes to have fun.’

Taking each of those elements of personality in turn, then mixing them together in one big pot creates a recipe that offers some explanation of her behaviour on that fateful night in June 1997.  A quiet girl, lacking in confidence and self-esteem.  A girl who has a fun loving, exciting side when she feels comfortable.  A girl who is almost suffocated in love, who has everything she wants, and when she wants it.  A girl who is immature, but also able to compartmentalise aspects of her life to an even greater extent than is normal among teenagers of her age.  Yes, she was pregnant.  And yes, she completely denied that this was the case.  While most young mothers grow intense feelings of love towards the small being inside of them, to Melissa the baby was an alien.  And it is hard to become close to something that does not belong inside of you.

Coming to events on 6th of June 1997, it was the Lacey Township High School Prom for the class of ’97.  Among those students there that night was Melissa Drexler.  A quiet but diligent student from a loving background who had a fascination for fashion.  Indeed, she hoped to work in the industry, and dreamt that one day she might be the next big thing in fashion design.

She was dressed in a flowing, long, black sleeveless velvet gown, dressed up for the occasion.  As teenage girls are wont to do, as soon as she arrived at the Prom she went, with a friend, to the ladies’ rest room.  She said that she needed to freshen up.

On the way to the Prom, travelling with another couple as well as her boyfriend, Melissa had in fact complained of stomach cramps.  Whether she suspected what was going to happen to her body that night, or was still in denial is unclear.  More certain is that her other travellers suspected nothing unusual.  In a statement read out later in court, Melissa would reveal that her waters had broken on the morning of June 6th, and that she had known she was pregnant.  The extent to which that knowledge formed an active part of her thinking is, as we will see, open to serious doubt.

The friend stood outside while Melissa went into a cubicle.  A scraping sound was heard, and the friend could see dripping blood and her friend’s feet moving about from under the cubicle walls.  But Melissa told her to ‘tell the boys I’ll be out in a moment,’ and the friend left.

When Melissa emerged she seemed initially distracted, but soon returned to more normal behaviour as might be expected from a girl attending her High School Prom.  She collected a salad, and sat down with friends.  She was quiet, a little reflective, but that was nothing unusual for the private, Catholic girl.  When John Lewis asked her to dance, she left her salad and got up to be with him.  He noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  Later, it was claimed that she approached the DJ and asked him to play the song ‘Unforgiven’ by Metallica.

But meanwhile back at the restroom, the blood and mess she had left behind in the cubicle was discovered.  It was no secret who had been in the toilet, and soon teachers and friends were approaching her to ask if she was unwell.  Melissa replied that she had had a heavy period.  That she had made little effort to clear up the blood struck several as strange.  A maintenance lady was called to clean up the mess, an unpleasant task to undertake.  But it was when she had filled the garbage container with soiled paper towels and lifted the sack out to dispose of it that something struck her as being unusual.  The sack was too heavy to be filled with just used towels.  She took the bag to the disposal unit and called a colleague.  With trepidation, he felt the weight of the sack and agreed that there was something wrong.  He opened up the garbage container and there, inside and roughly wrapped in garbage sacks, was the body of a new born boy. 

The emergency services were called, and attempts were made to revive the child, but these failed.  The boy was dead.  One of the questions that would be debated later was whether, in fact, he had ever been alive.  Police sealed off the rest room, and party goers were directed to another toilet block upstairs at the Garden Manor Hall in Aberdeen, New Jersey.  But Melissa had made only a token attempt to conceal her dead child, and was quickly identified as the mother of the baby. 

It transpired that her child had arrived, and she had cut his umbilical cord with the serrated edge of a sanitary dispenser.  The shuffling, scraping sound her friend had heard was the sound of the unit being dismantled, to reveal enough of the sharp, jagged edge to do its new job.  The child’s umbilical cord was roughly cut, there was no doubt as to what had taken place.

However, more uncertainty existed as to what happened next.  In court, in a prepared statement, Melissa would say, in a quiet and choked voice, that she had asphyxiated the child using garbage sacks.  The veracity of that statement stands in doubt, even to this day.  Autopsy reports suggested that the baby, he would later be called Christopher, was in fact strangled, but these findings were inconclusive.  He may also have been still born.  Air found in his lungs could, some Doctors would argue, have been caused by the failed attempts of the emergency services to resuscitate the new born child.

Following her arrest, Melissa was allowed home to her parents (on bail) to await her trial.  There, the family found themselves in the centre of a media storm and were effectively trapped in their house.  But they stood together.  Melissa withdrew ever more into herself, becoming an even smaller child trapped in an adult’s body.  Later, a funeral took place for Christopher, attended by Melissa, her parents and the boy’s father, John.  Witnesses said that it was a deeply emotional affair.  Others, especially the media, interpreted the event differently.  Alarmed that the focus of attention was on the mother, as little as she wanted it, and not the infant victim, newspapers became hysterical about what was happening to the baby, who had apparently been left alone in the morgue.  The funeral, many claimed, was an attempt to appease a public baying for blood.

Certainly, popular reaction to the case was strong.  On Google Groups, comments appeared such as ‘she wrapped him (the child) in a plastic bag and put his little helpless body in a trash can.  That’s like feeling sorry for the Menendez Brothers because they’re orphans.’; ‘It incenses me that anyone would call Melissa Drexler a woman who LOST a child.  Meanwhile my sister and millions of other would be parents are trying and trying to conceive...’ and ‘Alive or