No one knows exactly what happened to Eastern alumni Mark “Atwood” Evans in the early morning hours on June 5.

Earlier, he was having the time of his life. He and some friends attended the Sheffield Garden Walk, a festival at Lincoln Park in Chicago, to see The English Beat, one of Evan’s favorite bands, reunite. They were joking around having a good time. Later on, after the night’s festivities were coming to a close, Evans said goodbye to his friends and hopped on a bike to ride home. It would be the last time they would ever see him.

He arrived home at about 12:30 a.m. After that details start to get unclear. Supposedly, between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. some firecrackers were going off in the neighborhood and Evans went outside to ask the people lighting them to stop.

He grabbed his keys and ventured outside. Walking in the cool night air he was lead to a darker area, not too far from his house. He ran into someone there and something happened leading to Evans getting shot point blank in the heart and two times in the chest. He died instantly and was left to lay there until later that morning when a neighbor found him while walking her dog. Evans was just five days shy of his birthday; he was 42 years old.

Friends and family mourn the loss of Evans, a special, unique spirit who was so tragically taken from them. They have started up Web sites and an organization dedicated to Evans and tracking down any information about his murder.

Evans’ group of friends, dubbed by his mother Patti Evans “The Chicago Angels,” got together and with a combined effort set up the Web site www.whokilledmarkevans.org, a website devoted to what exactly happened on that fateful morning, said friend David Hippler.

“We are worried people will forget and not find the killer,” said Hippler. “Police work is handy but can only go so far.”

Posters were set up around the neighborhood with his picture and the scene of the crime on them, asking for anyone in the neighborhood who knows anything about what happened to step forward. The Angels have also collected money for a $15,000 reward for whoever finds Evans’ killer.

“I have a feeling we are going to find that person,” said Hippler. “I am convinced someone witnessed the crime or the killer told someone. It was too impulsive for someone not to know.”

Hippler said the police are so tight lipped that it is hard to even get a police report. However, “Atwood’s group of friends is so large that some of them knew police officers in the area and even the detectives involved. To them, Atwood’s death is a priority.”

His parents, Patti and Dick Evans, are also considering starting a scholarship fund in Evans’ name.

“We are trying to start a scholarship fund to help out someone persuing music,” said Patti. “I think Mark would have liked that.”

Evans’ had a lifetime love affair with music, according to his parents and some friends. He was constantly listening to new up-and-coming bands and was never without a new band for someone to try listening to.

Over the weekend, family and friends from around the world gathered to remember Evans and the memories they shared with him.

Evans was a freelance Web designer and was practically married to his work, said Patti. He lived paycheck to paycheck but preferred it that way. He did not have a boss, so he worked when he wanted to. To him that was all that mattered.

Evans also attended Eastern from 1981-1986. He was a journalism major with a graphic design background. He did daily comic strips for The Daily Eastern News for three years, said Eastern friend Brian Peterlinz. Such comics include “Kegar the Beerbarian,” who according to Peterlinz, “was about a college student who was a lightweight version of him [Evans].”

“He wanted to be a comic book artist,” said Dick. “I think that’s about as close as he ever got.”

While in college Evans met a group of friends that he would keep in touch with for the rest of his life.

Peterlinz remembers meeting Evans at some parties at Eastern.

“One night at a party, Mark got a hostess mad at him because she was hitting on me and I was spending the entire night talking with Mark,” said Peterlinz. They were close ever since.

One of the fondest memories Peterlinz has of Evans is Peterlinz’s last night at Eastern.

“It was my last night at Eastern after I graduated grad school and they were showing ‘The Big Chill’ in the south quad, and we snuck a few beers down there and just hung out watching the movie,” said Peterlinz. “The movie is about friends who have been together for over 20 years and I just kept thinking we were like them.”

One of the things Hippler will miss is the way Evans answered the telephone.

“My nickname in college was ‘Davo’ and whenever he would pick up the phone he would say ‘hey Davo,'” said Hippler. “Just they way he said it was something and I will never hear it again. At what point do you delete the voicemails and e-mails? Not yet for most of us, it’s too soon.”

Eastern friends Eric Thompson, Jim Reilly and Bill Beam wrote a song in memorial of Evans. According to Peterlinz, “If you listen to it, ‘leave the front door open’ refers to how, when someone was going to drop by Mark’s house, he’d tell us he’d leave the front door open for us, because he would be in his attic studio, working or listening to music.”

His parents are working hard on getting over their loss. Dick would wait every Sunday for his son’s call at exactly 9 p.m. and they would talk politics and catch up. “No matter where we were, he [Dick] would always leave early so he could get home in time to talk to Mark,” said Patti. “That is one of the things that is going to be hard to get over.”

Peterlinz was always trying to keep up with Evans’ reading collection.

“He is the only person who had more books than I do,” said Peterlinz. “He stored them all in his basement.”

Evans’ loved to read anything he could get his hands on. He subscribed to 10 or 20 magazines and read a book or two a week, said Hippler. “He was a pack rat.”

So when it came time to clear out his house, it took his parents and many of his friends, including some from overseas that he met while backpacking there, to clean out the entire place.

Over the weekend, friends and family talked and reminisced about the man who held them all together. He was their glue, said many of his friends. He was the one who kept everyone in touch. He was a friend to all.

Wrapped in his childhood Winnie the Pooh blanket, he was cremated and scattered in a cemetery outside of Atwood, the town he received his nickname from. The rest of his ashes remain in a beautiful box made by his uncle.

“It rained that day, like the angels were crying,” said Patti. “It rained when he was born and it rained when we buried him. Mark had a purpose in life and he fulfilled it, but it was a horrible way to go down.”

“A bunch of us were joking as a huge bolt of lightening hit as we went into the cemetery that Atwood is not happy that he is being buried in Hammond, because his soul is in Chicago,” said Hippler. “He loved Chicago so much.”

“Mark was a marvelously unique guy,” said Peterlinz, “someone you meet once in a lifetime, and we were lucky.”