Students Face Up to Prom Tragedy : Slaying: School sets up a counseling center to help young people handle grief over the shooting of a girl and the arrest of an ex-football player.

By MARC LACEY

June 4, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The cheery farewells that normally follow the senior prom were replaced Monday by tears and tragedy at Crescenta Valley High School as students mourned the death of a friend and were saddened by the arrest of another.

Psychologists and counselors set up a makeshift crisis center at the school to aid students shaken by the post-prom shooting of senior Berlyn Cosman, 17, a star basketball player. Meeting side-by-side in the school’s career center were dozens of Berlyn’s friends and those who knew Paul M. Crowder, a 19-year-old former student accused of pulling the trigger early Saturday during an all-night party at a hotel near Disneyland.

“We’re graduating in 17 days,” said senior Damian Scribner, who sat stoically in the main office reading a newspaper account of his friend’s death. “No one’s even talking about how great prom was. Prom was great but this takes so much away from it. . . . It’s like, why her?”

Police have now interviewed all 14 party-goers who rented three adjacent rooms with Berlyn. They determined that Crowder had been waving a revolver around during the night of beer drinking. Although detectives said they are treating the shooting as murder, they declined to say whether they believe Crowder intentionally killed Berlyn or accidentally fired the weapon.

Crowder, a former varsity football player, is being held in the Anaheim Temporary Detention Facility in lieu of $250,000 bail. The Orange County district attorney’s office said it will review the case today to determine what, if any, charges will be filed, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Odwalt.

School district officials said they had discouraged students from renting hotel rooms after the prom or holding private parties without adult supervision. But they acknowledged that the practice was common, whether it was all-night stints at the beach or trips to Disneyland, where Berlyn’s group is thought to have been headed the next day.

“There were a number of communications between the school, the students and the parents telling them not to rent rooms, not to go out all night, because of the possibility of something happening,” said Vic Pallos, public information officer for the Glendale Unified School District.

He added: “When it comes right down to it, once they leave the prom itself, there’s very little we can do to stop these young people from staying out all night, staying at hotels and engaging in these other activities.”

The timing of the shooting, just hours after the Class of 1991’s prom, made it all the worse, said the counselors who met with students throughout Monday.

“It had been a wonderful, happy prom for everyone,” said Judy Yager, the district’s psychologist. “They were on top of the world and then it came crashing down. These kids said they would never forget this. They said their whole lives would be affected by it.”

Yager said Berlyn’s death had been the first brush with violence or death for many students, making the grieving process all the more painful.

“I wish I could take a magic wand and make them go through this quickly but I can’t,” she said. “It takes time.”

On Monday, the flag outside the La Crescenta school flew at half staff. Parked out front was a sheriff’s patrol car and the unmarked vehicle of an Anaheim homicide detective. In the courtyard, the usual laughter was gone. Instead, students huddled together talking about what had happened in Room 608 of the Crown Sterling Suites in the hours after Friday night’s prom.

Those who knew the alleged assailant, who dropped out of school last year after his father’s death, said they are convinced he did not intentionally fire a bullet into Berlyn’s temple as she was sleeping on the hotel room couch.

“People are accusing him but I know him, and I know he wouldn’t just walk into a room and kill someone,” said Crescenta Valley junior Marcia Nieto, 18.

Another girl, who said she has been dating Crowder for the past four months but did not want her name used, called the shooting stupid but not malicious.

“It was totally an accident,” she said, basing her conclusion on conversations with others who were there. “It was dark. He was waving a gun around and that’s pretty stupid. But he was not out to get anybody.”

Varsity football coach Jim Beckenhauer, who taught Berlyn in gym class, said he was disappointed to learn that his former team member may have been involved in her death.

“I thought he had things straightened out and then he just disappeared after football season last year,” Beckenhauer said. He described Crowder as not a “bench warmer or All-League either. He was just one of the team.”

Berlyn’s friends, some with tears running down their faces, recalled her as a sociable girl who loved to be on the basketball court. Even when the Falcons went through tough times--like 1989’s winless season and a 95-13 loss to rival Muir High School in Pasadena the next year--she never became discouraged.

“We all wanted to see the season through,” she is quoted as saying in last year’s school yearbook. “We were not going to quit.”

Berlyn was to be honored with other seniors at an awards presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday at the school auditorium. She had won a prize as outstanding athlete and a full basketball scholarship to Missouri Western State College.

Chakib Sambar, the school’s vice principal, said the awards ceremony would go on as scheduled. But he said it would double as a memorial service for Berlyn.

Also contributing to this story was Times staff writer Lori Grange in Glendale.