Maren Sanchez

Connecticut high school students attend seaside vigil for murdered classmate Maren Sanchez 

Instead of prom Friday night, Jonathan Law High School students went to a seaside vigil for their murdered classmate.

About 200 community members and students, some wearing their prom dresses and tuxedos, gathered Friday evening at Walnut Beach in Milford, Conn., to remember 16-year-old Maren Sanchez, a junior who was murdered earlier in the day at the school after rejecting a classmate’s invitation to the dance.

Friends identified the boy as Chris Plaskon, also 16. He has been charged with murder as a juvenile, but could be charged as an adult following a court appearance Monday in New Haven.

Police did not identify the teen.

Anguished classmates funneled down to Walnut Beach around 6 p.m. — one hour before the school’s junior prom was scheduled to start at a nearby banquet hall.

The annual dance was postponed after the tragedy.

Wearing their formal wear, students cried and prayed at the local beach, the Hartford Courant reported. Friends shouted out memories of their slain classmate as they released purple balloons into the sky and yelled “Love you, Maren,” the newspaper reported.

People embrace on the beach during a vigil in honor of slain student Maren Sanchez in Milford, Connecticut April 25, 2014. The16-year-old girl was killed on Friday in an attack inside a Connecticut high school and authorities were investigating reports she was stabbed by a fellow student after rejecting his invitation to the prom, police said. Sanchez, a junior at Jonathan Law High School in Milford, was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the 7 a.m. (1100 GMT) attack, Milford Police Chief Keith Mello told a news conference. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW EDUCATION OBITUARY)

MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN/REUTERS

People embrace on Walnut Beach during the 6 p.m. vigil. Many students showed up in their formal wear as a remembrance to Sanchez, who was excited for the scheduled prom.

Earlier, students covered a rock outside the school with purple spray paint and wrote the teen’s name and birthday, Aug. 26, 1997, alongside a white heart.

Sanchez was attacked, allegedly by Plaskon, around 7:15 a.m., when the boy shoved the girl down a set of stairs and started to choke her, witnesses told the Daily News.

The teen pulled out a kitchen knife he brought from home and slashed Sanchez across the neck, chest and face.

Students arrive at the beach for a vigil in honor of slain student Maren Sanchez wearing their prom clothes carrying balloons in Milford, Connecticut April 25, 2014. The16-year-old girl was killed on Friday in an attack inside a Connecticut high school and authorities were investigating reports she was stabbed by a fellow student after rejecting his invitation to the prom, police said. Sanchez, a junior at Jonathan Law High School in Milford, was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the 7 a.m. (1100 GMT) attack, Milford Police Chief Keith Mello told a news conference. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW EDUCATION OBITUARY)

MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN/REUTERS

Students shouted out memories about their classmate, Maren Sanchez, as they released balloons into the sky.

She was pronounced dead at 7:43 a.m. Plaskon was immediately taken into custody.

"She was screaming," one friend, who was inside the building at the time of the attack, told The News. "There were students in the hallway when it happened. The kids who saw it are all a wreck."