Vigil marks 3rd anniversary of woman's disappearance

They will light candles, release balloons and silently wonder once again what happened that led them to this sad ceremony.

It has become, unfortunately, a regular event.

Brandy Hanna

Tonight, the friends and family of Brandy Hanna will hold a vigil to mark the third anniversary of her disappearance. On May 20, 2005, Hanna disappeared from her North Charleston apartment.

Since that time, there have been no answers, no leads, no clues — nothing but the vigils. And Donna Parent, Brandy's mother, always dreads it.

"It's not something you want to do," Parent said, "it's something I have to do. If I don't remind people she's missing, I'm afraid they'll forget."

Monica Caison, director of the CUE Center for Missing Persons, said these things do more than just provide comfort for the families of missing adults, they sometimes stir up witnesses.

"It does happen," Caison said. "There's somebody out there they haven't reached, somebody who hasn't realized they've seen something."

It is all the hope Brandy's family and North Charleston police have these days. Investigators have learned little beyond what they knew from the first.

On the day she vanished, Brandy worked her shift at Alex's Restaurant on Dorchester Road, got a ride to her apartment and talked to her mother on the phone in the early evening. She had big plans for the weekend — shopping Friday, the beach Saturday, breakfast with her mother and brother Sunday. But sometime that evening, the 32-year-old walked out of her apartment, leaving her money, her clothes, her entire life, behind.

North Charleston Detective Tamara DiCenzo-Driggers said she and other investigators have been back over the case in the last year, reinterviewing everyone who knew Brandy or had seen her that Friday. They got nothing.

"There are not many cases where nothing comes up," DiCenzo-Driggers said. "Every Sunday I pray that I get something to help me help that family. Donna just wants to know about her daughter, and it just kills her that we can't give it to her."

Parent said after three years she still struggles with the questions, but deals with it as best she can, working and spending time with her grandchildren. But every day she wonders.

"I know in my heart there's got to be one person who could break this open," Parent said. "I wish they knew how important it could be to one family's life."

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com