“When I go there and see how tall it is and how it’s grown, I see it like it’s his growth and he’s still there and he’s growing,” she said.

But while the tree develops with each passing day, the search for his killer remains stagnant, with no new answers of who punched Brandon D’Annunzio Oct. 1, 2000, outside what was BW-3, 220 M.A.C. Ave., leaving him with a head injury that ended his life 10 days later.

Brandon D’Annunzio’s case is one of two homicides within the last 20 years in the East Lansing and MSU community that remains unsolved.

A black book on a shelf

In 20 years, eight incidents of homicide have been reported to police in the East Lansing and MSU area. Of the eight, investigation into two cases — the beating of Brandon D’Annunzio and the 1993 strangling of East Lansing resident Mary Jean D’Agostino — has never closed.

D’Agostino’s body was found Aug. 29, 1993, in the hallway of a 787 Burcham Drive apartment building. Autopsy reports indicated she was strangled, but East Lansing police investigation hit dead ends and no suspect was found.

In recent years, a sergeant spent a year working on the case, scanning every piece of evidence for DNA, said East Lansing police Sgt. Mike Phillips, supervisor of the department’s records bureau. The case still remains unsolved.

After Brandon D’Annunzio was beaten, witnesses helped police create composite sketches of the three people who confronted him, one of whom delivered the fatal blow. The three have never been found.

For several years, investigators worked hard on the case, Phillips said. Investigators posted fliers seeking information about the three people who fled the scene and followed up on the tips they received, he said.

But the work of investigators was to no avail. The case will be difficult to solve unless a person with more information comes forward, Phillips said.

“Basically, his case is in a black book on a shelf,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “That’s what my son has become — a black book on a shelf.”

Dead end

Homicide cases become cold cases because investigators run out of leads to follow, said Barry Glover, a cold case expert and associate professor of criminal justice at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, Fla. When investigators are unable to find the people they need to speak with and the case reaches a dead end, it is put on a shelf when new cases come in, he said.

“The sad reality is other cases come along and people are pulled off cold cases because they’re pretty much worked out and they have to move to the new cases,” Glover said.

Although law enforcement agencies in areas such as East Lansing with populations of about 45,000 often lack the resources and experience of solving homicides, homicide rates are much lower than in big cities, he said.

Homicides have the highest clearance rate of all crimes, and unsolved homicides represent a very small number compared to other crimes, Glover said. Within 48 hours of a homicide, investigators typically will have located a suspect. After that point, the case begins to go cold, he said.

“You devote whatever resources you can get to solving that case within two or three days,” Glover said. “On campus, it’s usually solved by the end of the day.”

Homicide investigations are a team effort where no detail is too small to notice and a fingerprint on a credit card can make or break a case, he said.

“People are going in 20 different directions, trying to find a lead as to who might have killed this person,” Glover said. “Then you follow up all your leads and before you know it you get your evidence back. Inside the wallet is a credit card with a fingerprint. You bring (the suspect) in and tell him you’ve got his fingerprint on the credit card. Usually, he’ll confess.”

Missing any small detail or forgetting to salvage an item that could disappear over time can destroy a case, as a lack of evidence makes it impossible to prove the suspect was at the scene, he said.

“It’s the things you miss — maybe the cigarette butt on the front porch, back porch,” Glover said. “Things of that nature, little, you might have missed. Once you lose that evidence, you don’t have anything to put the suspect there.”

Putting it together

Reopening a case means putting all the pieces together again to try to understand what happened, said MSU Detective Lt. Doug Monette, who was involved in the Ingham County Cold Case Homicide Task Force and helped solve several cold cases.

Investigators have to re-read everything that originally was documented and track down the individuals involved in the incident, sometimes traveling across the state or country, he said.

“It also comes back to talking with people, re-examining the evidence as well as putting the puzzle back together,” he said.

Members of the Ingham County Cold Case Homicide Task Force put their heads together to determine the solvability of a case, based on the amount of evidence and the availability of witnesses, said Ingham County Sheriff’s Office detective Brian Valentine, who also was part of the force.

Time can be a positive or negative force in reopened cases, as people who were originally quiet about a homicide might be more open years later, he said. The force, which reopened four cases, had about a 75 percent success rate, but budget issues put the it on hiatus for the last year, Valentine said.

The key is to remember the victims and their families deserve to have the case worked to the fullest extent, Glover said.

“Think about it,” he said. “Your daughter has been murdered and 30 years later, you still don’t know who did it.”

For Shawn D’Annunzio, a simple apology from the people whose actions led to her son’s death would give the closure to make a world of difference.

“I want to tell them they didn’t just kill my son, they destroyed my family in the process,” she said. “More than anything, I would like the three of them to say they’re sorry and mean it. An ‘I’m sorry’ would mean the world to me.”