Boston Herald - May 7, 2009

Five days before her 15th birthday, Melanie Melanson went missing in the woods of Woburn two decades ago.

Yesterday, authorities offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of the body of the Woburn high school freshman.

By the early-morning hours of Oct. 28, 1989, the group Melanie was with when she entered a wooded area near the Woburn/Stoneham line after a party had dwindled to two boys. They have since given police responses “ranging from cooperative to not so,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone said.

“This is certainly an appeal to people’s conscience to tell the truth,” Leone said at a press conference at the edge of the woods. “No information at this stage is insignificant.”

In the months after Melanie’s disappearance, family, friends and police with dogs combed the area repeatedly, and dive teams searched local waters, to no avail.

“There has not been a day that has gone by in those 20 years that we have not thought about Melanie,” her aunt, Maryann Masciulli, said.

“Since Melanie disappeared, we have lost her mother, we have lost her father, and we have lost her grandparents, who loved her so much. They all died without knowing what happened to Melanie. . . . We are asking for your help so that we can . . . give her the burial that she deserves.”

Anyone with information should contact Woburn police at 781-933-1212, ext. 853, or state police assigned to the district attorney’s office at 781-897-6650.