And 11 days later, 24-year-old Brandon D’Annunzio, the center of his mother’s world, died.

The bed in Sparrow Hospital where he was kept on life support has no lasting impression of him. The college students who roamed the streets that night have long since graduated, gotten married, had kids. The case has been passed from detective to detective; lead after lead has been followed without success. No charges have been pressed, no names have been released. No apology has been given.

Ten years.

That’s how long Shawn D’Annunzio has been living in pain.

She still has trouble getting out of bed in the morning. She still can’t see the color green without cringing. In the middle of the work day, she is overcome with an urge to scream.

Do you know that I’ve lost my son?

But after all this, she has yet to give up the fight to solve her son’s case. She still is holding onto hope, even after years of police leads that went nowhere.

“I don’t want to go in a restaurant and wonder if the people in the next booth are the ones involved in my son’s killing,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “I want to know some justice has been done.”

Dancing through life

To those who knew him, Brandon D’Annunzio was a triple-A battery. Friendly and outgoing, he was in perpetual motion. He played almost every sport, including fantasy football. He loved Halloween, and every year in college, he dressed up as the same zombie-like creature.

His mother still has the costume.

Kristen Schlott, a friend of Brandon D’Annunzio, remembers him as “vibrant.” She recalls the backwards hat he wore — and how she still gets a rush when she thinks she sees it in a crowd. And she remembers the dancing.

“He was always dancing,” Schlott said. “Always had a good time.”

It’s what Brandon D’Annunzio was doing the night he would receive the massive head injuries that led to his death. It was a bachelor party for his college friend, John Bradley. They’d taken every precaution — rented a bus, established a buddy system, even picking East Lansing instead of Detroit because it was safer, Bradley said. They were at Buffalo Wild Wings, at the time called BW-3, and located at 220 M.A.C. Ave.

“Even that night he would take the floor and dance,” Bradley said. “He would dance and dance with anybody that was willing to dance with him.”

The bachelor party got a bit rowdy. They were asked to leave the bar. Somehow, Brandon D’Annunzio got ahead of the group.

At the same time Brandon D’Annunzio exited BW-3, two men and a woman were kicked out of a bar across the street. It is unknown how or why the confrontation happened. By the time Bradley left the bar a few minutes later, the police were already there.

East Lansing police Chief Tom Wibert was on the scene that night. As the crowds on the sidewalk swelled around him, Wibert tried to keep the still conscious Brandon D’Annunzio calm, holding his hand as he lay on the pavement.

“He was disoriented,” Wibert said. “He was obviously injured. We were restraining him and I said, ‘You’re OK, you’re OK.’ And he said, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’”

They were some of the last words Brandon D’Annunzio would speak. At Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital, he was heavily sedated to reduce the swelling in his brain. For the majority of his stay, he was in a coma-like state.

He was his mother’s best friend. He was like a son to his grandparents, a hero to his younger cousins.

“They didn’t kill one person,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “They killed my whole family. … These people are going on with their lives. They might be married or having grandchildren.”

She sees her friends with their grandchildren, knowing she’ll never have one.

And she was so close.

Brandon D’Annunzio died at the bachelor party for a wedding that took place the weekend of Oct. 11, 2000. His girlfriend was coming up for the celebration; she was going to spend the weekend at the D’Annunzio home.

But on Oct. 11, 2000, his life support was pulled. He died that day ­— the day he planned to tell his mother the news.

He was going to get married.

“Inside,” Shawn D’Annunzio said, “I’ve just been dying. … (The assailants) know that my son is gone, and here I have no child. I have no chance of ever having any grandchildren.”

Moving closer to closure

East Lansing police Lt. Bill Mitchell is the most recent in a line of officers who have worked on Brandon D’Annunzio’s case throughout the past decade. To Mitchell, the case has potential. The East Lansing Police Department, or ELPD, has three sketches, two for the men who attacked him and one for the woman with the men. There was an MSU vs. Northwestern game that weekend, and the streets were crowded with potential witnesses.

“There’s somebody out there who knows,” Mitchell said.

Yet every lead has been followed to a dead end.

“From what I have seen, and I re-looked over the case, I gotta say I think we have done everything we could,” Mitchell said.

That first week after Brandon D’Annunzio’s death, a task force was assembled involving not just East Lasing, but MSU, Meridian Township and Lansing police. The Michigan State Police contributed a detective and the effort lasted for months. But as the flood of leads slowed, the case cooled; memories faded; people moved.

Every year, the ELPD puts out press releases. They follow the leads that come in.

There aren’t many anymore.

But last month, Mitchell told Shawn D’Annunzio the department had a “person of interest.”

It’s a difficult situation, Wibert said. Releasing information to anyone, even the victim’s mother, could put the case in jeopardy. ELPD officials said they don’t share information for the good of the case. But at the same time, they’re withholding small steps toward the closure Shawn D’Annunzio has waited so long for.

And she is tired of waiting.

That’s where Steve Schmidtke comes in.

Shawn D’Annunzio first met Schmidtke at work. The retired sergeant for the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department was working for a company that takes fingerprints.

The two got to talking; she mentioned her son and the seemingly stagnant case. And Schmidtke immediately was intrigued.

“Police, at the time, (had) a lot of stuff going on,” Schmidtke said. “Investigations hit a dead end. I love going on it and picking up stuff and reading reports and seeing where things stand.”

At press time Thursday, Schmidtke still was reviewing reports from police and had not officially taken the case. But when asked if the case was solvable, his answer was immediate.

Yes. Definitely.

After 10 years, people could change their minds about talking to someone, Schmidtke said. Someone might remember something, feel more comfortable talking to him than a uniformed police officer.

It’s worked before, Schmidtke said.

In his four years as a private investigator, Schmidtke has solved various cases, made significant progress on a case that went cold 34 years ago. But he has yet to solve a murder.

All Shawn D’Annunzio wants is a face, a name. A minute to sit down and talk — just talk — with the people who changed her life forever the night they killed her son.

Then, she said, maybe the nightmares will stop. Maybe the feeling that she has failed her family will go away. Maybe life with her significant other will be easier. Maybe she’ll finally get some sleep.

“They don’t have to see me,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “They don’t have to know what they did to me and my family. I think they need to know that.”

Still here

A tree grows near the house where Brandon D’Annunzio grew up in Livonia, Mich. Planted the year he died, it now is more than six feet tall.

It’s one of the tiny, daily bits of him left in Shawn D’Annunzio’s life. A prayer card from his funeral hangs in a small glass frame surrounded by pressed flowers. His first ornament goes on the top of her Christmas tree. Some of his cremated ashes are sealed within a golden heart necklace she wears around her neck.

But Shawn D’Annunzio doesn’t need reminders.

Because for her, the mother, her son never really left. He still watches her bake holiday cookies. He is protecting his youngest cousin who is preparing to serve in the Marines. And, she believes, he is the reason she met Bob Scheets, her significant other, on the first anniversary of her son’s death.

“I say, to this day, Brandon put us together because he was always the man of the family,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “When he passed, he was worried about me being alone. He was worried about momma being by herself.”

Shawn D’Annunzio and Scheets will celebrate their ninth anniversary this year. They live in a comfortable ranch home with three dogs, two cats and parrot who calls out, ‘Shawn,’ when he feels lonely.

Her son still is her first thought in the morning, and his loss eats at her for the rest of the day.

“It’s not like something you can talk about every day,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “It’s something you have to keep inside.”

And somehow she does — people she works with say she always has a smile on her face; she supports other mothers who have suffered similar fates.

It’s her family that keeps her going, she said. Giving them closure is just as important as finding it for herself.

Her parents were particularly close with her son. His grandfather was like a dad to him. It disheartens her to think her parents, who might have been great-grandparents by now, might never live to see justice brought to their grandson.

And so she has made it her mission to one day give them the answers about their grandsons’ death.

“If I could find the people and my mom and dad could see who it is, it would be so fulfilling for me,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “I would feel like I did something special for them.”

Shawn D’Annunzio will never give up the fight for her son. If the most recent police lead runs cold, if Schmidtke can’t make any progress, she will keep telling the story again and again, re-living the days Brandon was in a coma, so her story can be heard. When she speaks of him, her voice echoes her infinite sadness. But her words are steady. She holds her head up when she speaks of him. She looks you in the eye.

The world has changed a lot in 10 years. Shawn D’Annunzio has a new partner, a new lead and a new home.

And the new home needs a new tree.

This year, on the anniversary of his death, she and Scheets will pick out a fruit tree for their yard. It will serve as a testament that although a decade can change many things, one mother’s hope never has faltered.

“I have to make the best of my life because I have to do it for him,” Shawn D’Annunzio said. “I have an obligation to my son to do this, because I know he would do this for me.”

Staff writer Andrew Krietz contributed to this story.