An overflow crowd of friends and relatives attended the funeral of Ashley Nicole Mason in Elkridge yesterday, while police released new details about the hours leading up to the 14-year-old Columbia girl's death.
The body of the Long Reach High School freshman was found Friday morning in woods next to a parking lot at Route 108 and Bendix Road. Police continue to search for a suspect in the killing.
Police said yesterday that Ashley's mother, Crystal G. Mason, woke Thursday to find that Ashley was not home. Mason called police to report that her daughter was missing.
By 2 p.m., Mason had found Ashley in a nearby neighborhood, taken her home and called police to tell them that the girl had been found.
Mother and daughter spent the evening together, but the next morning Mason saw that Ashley was gone again. About 11 a.m., police got a call saying that a female body had been found behind a Columbia Pizza Hut.
The description of the body matched information provided in the missing-person report Mason had filed on her daughter the previous day. On Saturday, Ashley was identified as the victim.
Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said yesterday that the department is not releasing information about the crime, other than that Ashley was stabbed to death where her body was found, and that she had not been sexually assaulted.
Llewellyn said details such as the number and location of Ashley's wounds are being withheld. "We don't want to release information that could jeopardize our ability to apprehend the responsible person or to successfully prosecute when the time comes," Llewellyn said.
The girl's death has devastated her family, teachers and classmates, many of whom packed the Gary L. Kaufman Funeral Home at Meadowridge Memorial Park, the cemetery where she was buried. The chapel was full, and mourners crowded into chairs set up in a makeshift hallway seating area.
The police will have a public meeting on the case at 7:30 p.m. today at Howard High School, 8700 Route 108 in Columbia.
