No foul play seen in Alyssa Byrne’s death after New Year’s party

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Authorities don’t believe foul play was involved in the death of a teenage girl found in the snow near Lake Tahoe after going missing during a New Year’s Eve celebration.

Alyssa Byrne went to the Snow Globe Music Festival in South Lake Tahoe on Monday night and wasn’t seen again until her body was discovered Friday.

Her family, which had been helping with the search, released a statement saying: “We didn’t expect this outcome, but we are going to deal with it now as best we can.’

A utility worker found the body about 10 feet from a road. The body was not visible from the road because of high piles of snow.

Byrne was fully clothed, with no visible trauma. El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies will be investigating her death.
‘Our preliminary investigation with this morning’s discovery, it would tend to point in the direction that Alyssa had elected to walk home from the event,’ Paul Howell of the Douglas County, Nev., Sheriff’s Department told reporters at a news conference.

Officials say there was a long wait for shuttle buses from the community college where the concert was being held Monday night, prompting some concert-goers to walk back. Although officials are not commenting yet on a cause of death, it appears possible that Byrne may have fallen off the road while walking along it. The temperature overnight fell to between zero and 10 degrees.

Byrne was staying at the Horizon Casino across the Nevada border.

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-- A Times staff writer and Fox 40