Girl Slain at Party Is Eulogized as a Star

Much of the crowd that cheered Berlyn Cosman at basketball games in the Crescenta Valley High School gym would have watched her pick up her high school diploma at graduation later this month.

But on Friday it was her funeral that brought together more than 800 friends, family members, teachers and teammates.

“Although you never had an opportunity to take that final shot,” Coach Mel Sims said in a eulogy, “you will always be remembered as a champion.”

The 17-year-old all-star basketball player, who had won a four-year scholarship at Missouri Western State University, was shot to death last weekend at a post-prom party at an Anaheim hotel. Paul Crowder, a former Crescenta Valley student, has been charged with murder.

A crisis center set up Monday at the high school has drawn almost 300 grieving students as the death continues to torment the senior class, said Assistant Principal Chakib Sambar. The 340 graduating seniors and all the faculty were encouraged to attend the funeral.

“She obviously touched many of us,” Sambar said. “She was taken from us in a very senseless and tragic way and that is shaking us to the roots.”

Msgr. Fachtna Collins told the overflow crowd at Holy Redeemer Church in Montrose that the girl’s sudden death does not make sense to those who loved her and raises questions that may never be answered.

“Death is the most certain part of life,” he said. “We know that at some time we must all die. This morning we sit dazed and shocked by this tragedy that has separated Berlyn Cosman from her family and friends. . . . Its purpose is hidden in the divine wisdom of God.”

Berlyn’s accused killer is being held in Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail. Crowder, 19, is accused of shooting her once in the head in the Crown Sterling Suites hotel after an all-night drinking party with more than a dozen friends, police said.

Crowder had been loading and unloading a revolver during the night and allegedly shot Berlyn as she slept on a couch in a darkened room Saturday morning, police and friends said. Crowder’s friends maintain that he was playing with the weapon when it accidentally discharged and struck Berlyn.

Berlyn’s prom date, Ken Schaffer, 16, told classmates during a school assembly Wednesday that several youths had fallen asleep in the same hotel room when they were awakened by a single gunshot. He said he wrapped her head in a towel and yelled at her to start breathing while another friend called for help. She was pronounced dead 18 hours later at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange.