Jennifer Martino should be making last-minute plans for her wedding Saturday. Instead, the MSU alumna is grieving the death of a friend.
Brandon D’Annunzio, who was severely beaten outside an East Lansing bar last week, died Wednesday afternoon.
He was supposed to be in Martino’s wedding party. The 24-year-old Livonia resident died at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. D’Annunzio had been put into a medically induced coma Monday to keep him completely immobile.
He suffered a severe head injury, a fractured skull and a blood clot in his brain as a result of injuries he received in an Oct. 1 attack outside BW-3, 220 M.A.C. Ave.
“We’re all reminiscing about Brandon,” Martino said. He had a great sense of humor and was famous for a dance he had created called ‘the horse.’ “Nobody could do ‘the horse’ like him.”
She and her fiancé John Bradley, a Michigan Technological University alumnus, had considered calling off the wedding. But Brandon’s father Dennis D’Annunzio talked the couple out of it, saying Brandon wouldn’t have wanted it that way.
Bradley and D’Annunzio were good friends, as they were students together at Michigan Tech. D’Annunzio was an engineering student.
Originally, Bradley had planned on having the bachelor party in Detroit or Canada, but opted for East Lansing “because it was safe,” Martino said.
Doctors told the D’Annunzio family the result of the injuries was equivalent to falling from a two-story building. Police are investigating the case and looking for witnesses of the attack.
Only one witness is known to have come forward to help police identify the assailant.
East Lansing police say D’Annunzio got separated from friends and ended up outside the bar, where he became sick and began throwing up.
A witness told police a group of five men and two women approached D’Annunzio and one of the men attacked him. Police responded to the scene at about 12:40 a.m. Oct. 1 - the night of the MSU vs. Northwestern game - and found D’Annunzio unconscious and bleeding on the sidewalk.
Family and friends were offering a $1,000 reward for information about the assault.
“He’s my only son, my only kid. It’d be nice to see some kids and grandkids someday,” Brandon’s father Dennis D’Annunzio told The State News on Monday while his son was in a coma.
A D’Annunzio family member contacted by The State News late Wednesday evening said she could not yet comment. The man’s father could not be reached for comment.
Dennis D’Annunzio flew to Lansing from Bend, Ore. to be with his son following the incident. He said he wants to know what happened and why.
“It’s not like I want to shoot the guy, I guess I’m just disappointed in humanity,” he said Monday. “There must have been a lot of people out there who saw something going on out there.”
Martino agrees. She said, as an MSU student, she knows people had to have witnessed the incident from the windows of The Riviera Café Restaurant & Lounge, 231 M.A.C. Ave. - which is directly across the street from BW-3.
“By people not coming forward, it has made me lose respect for my school,” Martino said.
Police have had no leads since the night of the incident. A witness said the group responsible for the assault had just been kicked out of The Riv’ when a member of the group crossed the street and assaulted D’Annunzio.
Police are looking for a white male, about 6 feet 2 inches tall, 195 pounds with shoulder length brown hair. He was last seen wearing a black leather jacket and was accompanied by a group of four men and two women. One of the women had long brown hair and was last seen wearing a jacket with orange or yellow lettering.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the East Lansing Police Department at 337-2599 or (877) ELPD-TIP. Anonymous tips are being accepted.
