Boston woman dies while trying to walk home amid arctic blast

"Probably any other night — literally, any other night in the last 25 years — it's no big deal. But it was just the wrong night. It was so incredibly cold."

Woman found dead in Boston park during record-breaking cold

A Boston woman was pronounced dead after she was found unresponsive in a park amid the frigid cold early Saturday morning.

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Melanie DiVasta, 47, went to a comedy show with her brother, Brian DiVasta, Friday night and later went to meet friends in the Financial District before she was to head home to her North End apartment, the latter told WCVB.

“The expectation when we all left that evening was: ‘You’re going to take an Uber, right?’ And I’m pretty confident that she took the Uber to meet up with her friends, and then she didn’t (for the trip home). She decided to walk home,” Brian DiVasta told the news station.

A Boston police report reviewed by WCVB states DiVasta was unresponsive when she was discovered around 3:30 a.m. Saturday on a bench at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, less than 500 yards from her home.

She was later pronounced dead.

“It’s a walk that she’s made more than a thousand times before, probably,” Brian DiVasta told WCVB. “She was a Boston girl. She called the North End her home for more than 25 years.”

New England got a heavy dose of arctic air last weekend, with temperatures in Boston dipping down to a record low of -8 degrees for Feb. 3 late Friday night, according to the National Weather Service.

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By 5:15 a.m. Saturday, temperatures had trickled down to -10, with a wind chill far lower at -35.

According to WCVB, it is unclear how long Melanie DiVasta was at the park before she was found.

“Probably any other night — literally, any other night in the last 25 years — it’s no big deal. But it was just the wrong night. It was so incredibly cold,” Brian DiVasta said.

A memorial service for Melanie DiVasta will be held this weekend in North Reading.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the location of the memorial service.

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