On Monday afternoon, May 9, 2005, Detective Lavern Steven Brann, 44, of the Battle Creek City Police Department was killed while working a homicide lead. He and his partner had gone to the Forest Hills apartment complex on Brewer Drive to interview the mother of a person of interest in the May murder of 66-year-old taxi driver Eunice Sharp. The detectives split to cover the building; Brann approached the front while his partner went to the rear.

Shortly after they separated, gunfire rang out at the front of the building. Brann’s partner heard the shots and ran toward them, encountered an armed man and was shot in the leg as the suspect fled. Officers later found Detective Brann in a stairwell with fatal gunshot wounds; he was transported to Battle Creek Health Systems and died at the hospital. Brann had served 20 years on the department and left a wife and two daughters.

The man responsible was later apprehended, convicted on numerous counts that included Brann’s murder, and sentenced to life without parole; he also pleaded no contest to the taxi driver’s murder. Does anyone have information about Detective Brann’s final movements at the apartment complex or witnessed the shooting that afternoon?