Five years later, Kevin Hughes is still haunted by the unimaginable task of performing CPR on his dying son Brandon for 20 minutes while he waited for an ambulance.
It was just after 2 a.m. on July 23, 2009, when the elder Hughes heard gunfire outside the family’s North Vancouver home.
“I heard the two shots — bang, bang — and I ran out there and he was slumped over,” Hughes recalled in an interview this week. “So when I got to him there was no response and I don’t think he was breathing at that point. So I rolled him over and was doing CPR on him.
“I just remember saying: ‘Is the ambulance coming? Is the ambulance coming?’ and the officer kept saying: ‘Yeah, it’s coming. Don’t worry Mr. Hughes. It’s coming. Continue on with what you’re doing. You’re doing a good job. Just keep going.’ ”
Brandon Vito Hughes, 28, died at Lions Gate Hospital despite his dad’s valiant efforts.
The suffering that began that day continues for Hughes, his wife Lilliana and daughter Krystal, who are still waiting for answers about the murder of their beloved family member.
“It has been five years now and the police have said to us that they have got a lot of good information. They can’t reveal too much about the case. … Without telling me they have it solved, to me it seems like they have a good idea,” Hughes said.
Sgt. Adam MacIntosh of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said investigators continue to work on the case and still hope people will come forward with information that could lead to a break.
He said Brandon had some gang associations that might have led to the shooting.
“This was a targeted event,” he said.
“Our desire is to seek out information. Somebody out there knows something. This is a family that is still in mourning who every day desire some resolution to what occurred, who loved their son and recognize he made some choices that obviously had a drastic, tragic outcome.
“But the desire is to get that information out there.”
Kevin Hughes said Brandon worked hard as a heavy-duty equipment operator on major construction projects such as the Sea to Sky Highway. He had just started work on the new Port Mann Bridge when he was killed.
“He was also an avid photographer and very accomplished. He had just opened an art photo gallery at the foot of Lonsdale just before this occurred,” Hughes said.
“He was making these for high-end custom homes. … That’s what makes us so sad and angry is that he was very accomplished at the time he was taken out.”
When police told Hughes his son had criminal connections that might have got him killed, he was shocked.
“He lived downstairs. I didn’t see these people,” Hughes said. “They can’t prove it might have had something to do with someone he had been hanging out with at the time.
“But they say that there is a possibility that it could be.”
The family is planning to offer a reward for information leading to an arrest and charges in Brandon’s murder.
“It is just frustrating that we’ve gone so long and we can’t get answers,” Hughes said.
“It is five years later and it is just as difficult as the day it happened.
“Every birthday and every holiday — Christmas and Easter — it is the same thing you’re faced with.”
Younger sister Krystal remembers Brandon looking out for her and taking her along on his many activities with friends.
“He was always very adventurous. He would always bring me around to his friends, showing me off. I just always remember being so proud of him,” she said this week, her voice breaking.
He loved dirt biking, building fish tanks and his photography.
“He was my best friend and he helped me through a lot,” Krystal said.
She now has a young daughter whom her brother did not meet, and wishes he was around to know his three-year old niece.
“She has never met him, but she knows because we talk so much about him, and she’ll say ‘Oh, is that Brandon who is in heaven?’ ”
Krystal said Brandon was so creative and spontaneous he once took a giant roll of construction plastic and dish soap to Wreck Beach and made a huge slip and slide.
“The whole beach was going down it,” she said. “He was always trying to entertain people and putting people before him.”
She said her mind is always going in circles “trying to figure out why and who.”
Having an arrest would be some small measure of closure, she said.
“It hurts so much because they didn’t hurt my brother — the person who did this ruined our family.”
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