A vigil on the one-year anniversary of Jonelle Melton’s murder attracted about 80 students, teachers and parents to Riverside Gardens Park ank Tuesday night. A memorial walk is planned for Saturday. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
Friends and colleagues of slain Red Bank Middle School teacher Jonelle Melton plan a memorial fundraising walk at the school Saturday.
An opening ceremony is scheduled for 9:30a with music, a butterfly release and a dedication of a small butterfly garden. A walk around Red Bank will follow. The rain date for the walk is Sunday.
Suggested donations for the Jonelle E. Melton Student Activity Fund to help pay for student programs in her honor are $10 for adults and $3 for students.
Questions about the event should go to Mary Wyman, the school’s dean of students, at 732.758.1500.
A popular 33-year-old social studies teacher, Melton was found dead in her Neptune City apartment on September 14, 2009 by her estranged husband and co-worker, Michael Melton. No one has been charged, and the Monmouth County Prosecutor has remained mum about the crime, declining to address rumors months afterward at Melton had been beaten and shot.
The Asbury Park Press plans a page-one article Sunday about the case, which it says authorities do not appear close to solving.
Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call the prosecutor’s office Detective Daniel Baldwin at 800.533.7443 or Neptune City police at 732.775.1615.