Two arrested after cheerleader falls to death from hotel balcony

? A high school cheerleader on a dream trip to Hawaii to perform at a college football all-star game plunged naked to her death from a ninth-floor hotel balcony. Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder and later released.

On a 9-degree morning thousands of miles away, a New Jersey suburb grieved Wednesday for 18-year-old Lauren Crossan as it waited for answers about her mysterious death.

“I can’t even describe how much it hurts,” said Erica Bauerlein, a senior from Randolph, N.J., who had known Lauren since both were 3 years old. “People were breaking down in school. I’ve never seen anything so somber since 9-11. The hallways were so quiet.”

Crossan’s body was found Monday morning by a hotel guest only hours after she had checked into the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa.

Tuesday, police in Hawaii arrested two men on suspicion of second-degree murder, said Lt. Tivoli Faaumu. Donald L. Devorss and Erik B. Larson, both of Folsom, Calif., who were registered to the room from which Crossan fell, were released Wednesday pending investigation, according to a police records. They had not been charged.

Devorss answered a telephone call to his hotel room but said he had no comment and hung up. A subsequent call went unanswered.

The men, ages 19 and 20, told police that Crossan was in their room when they fell asleep early Monday. Her clothes and personal belongings were still in the room when police arrived to question the men, but they said they did not know what happened to her, Faaumu said.

The Lahaina Wing of the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort is shown in Kaanapali, Hawaii. Two California men were arrested in the death of Lauren Crossan, an 18-year-old New Jersey cheerleader whose naked body tumbled from the ninth floor balcony of the Maui hotel.

A chaperone on the trip received a call from Crossan about 1:30 a.m. Monday saying she was OK and would be returning to her room, Faaumu said. When Crossan did not show up, the others went to look for her but could not find her, Faaumu said.

Carson Tani, deputy prosecuting attorney for Maui County, said the investigation could take several weeks.

Crossan was captain of the cheerleading competition squad at Randolph High School, about 30 miles west of New York City in an affluent area of New Jersey.

Crossan was one of three Randolph seniors selected by the National Cheerleaders Assn. to perform with nearly 600 other cheerleaders from across the country at the halftime show of Saturday’s Hula Bowl.