REAL ESTATE REPORT

Bratcher says police have a decent rate of solving hit and run cases, clearing about 25 percent overall and even more cases that involve injury or fatality, but this case is tricky.

“It was dark, not many witnesses, and the ones we have couldn’t see tags or plates.”

Still, he says, there’s hope. He has seen cases in which the word gets out, and someone who knows something — in one case, it was a worker at a vehicle body shop says something that leads detectives to a suspect. That could happen in this case, he says.

Andrew’s parents say they are no strangers to tragedy. Several years ago, Andrew Sr.’s father was killed in a hit and run accident; the driver never was caught, he tells us.

“I feel like I am living that nightmare all over again,” Andrew Sr. says. Andrew’s grandmother, Beverly Green, lost a husband and now a grandson.

As a young child, Tyrlonda says she was molested, lived in a foster home for several years and was abused again when she returned to live with family members. “At age 12, I was homeless and lived under a bridge for some time,” she says.

Multiple tips have been called in — there were rumors the car was from the neighborhood, or that the driver targeted Andrew — but police say they followed every lead to no avail.

“I always vowed to give my children, my family, what I never had. I was always hard on Andrew. We fuss at them because we always think they can do more.

“I was trying to prepare him for the world. Telling him to be a man. Now I wish I had just sat him down and hugged him and told him how proud I was of him.”

Andrew’s sister, Shurinda, a junior at Lake Highlands High School, remembers walking to school with her brother the day he died.

“Andrew was laughing and joking and dancing and making me laugh. He was a good brother. I didn’t get a chance to tell him I loved him,” she says. “Now, at school, when I am at the Freshman Center, I sometimes look for him. It’s like a bad dream.”

If the family has found any solace, it’s in the response of the Lake Highlands community, Tyrlonda says.

“I am 33 years old, and I haven’t even met the amount of people that showed up to Andrew’s services — so many of them — and they all had such wonderful things to say about him,” she says.

“So many loved him. One of his friends told me that Andrew one day had actually given him, not the shirt off his back, but the socks off his feet. I just had to smile.”

Indeed, the Lake Highlands community rallied behind the Green family. The night of the accident, at least 100 mourners — including students, football coaches, teachers and Young Life leaders — gathered at Lake Highlands North Park for a candlelight vigil. His junior high football coach that evening remembered him as a team asset.

“He always tried so hard. He wasn’t the biggest or strongest, but he always picked himself up when he got knocked down. He always had a smile and encouraged others,” one of the coaches told the crowd. “He had an awesome heart.” continued on page 43