If juvenile court is supposed to provide life lessons for the young, how come it's Colleen Falasca, the 49-year-old victim in this case, who feels like she got punished?
"These parents are cowards and they're raising their kids to wiggle out of difficult situations," Falasca told me, incensed by the so-called end to the story that has captivated the region for a month.
We sat in her formal living room, just about the only spot in the house not trashed in the March beer bash attended by 60 to 80 teenagers.
She's painting the kitchen walls peach, to cover stains from the food fight. In the dining room, she points out a gouge in an antique credenza and the table now missing two busted cane-back chairs.
Behind us stands the Steinway - a $50,000 grand purchased from a concert pianist moving to Taiwan.
Beer rusted the strings. Chewing gum was smeared on World War I-era mahogany. Somehow, the pooper missed the sound board.
Among the post-party harassment she's endured? Finding used sanitary napkins on her front steps.
"I live in a house, but I don't feel like it's a home anymore."
Second thoughts
Falasca has three biological children and is legal guardian to a teenager desperate to fit in at Haddonfield's affluent suburban high school.
As she tells it, the then-14-year-old was coerced by the cool crowd to offer the house for a party, had second thoughts, but relented after a boy threatened to break in if she didn't leave the key under a mat.
"She thought it would make her popular," Falasca said, flatly. "She was wrong."
So wrong, Falasca expected the girl to be arrested and told her she'd have to fight the charges on her own - no lawyer, no rescue.
"I teach my kids to live with the consequences of their choices."
For the 14-year-old, that meant scrubbing the reeking mess, fessing up to the cops, being shunned - and threatened - at school.
"I wouldn't let her stay home," Falasca explained. "She had to face those kids."
