shot 7.sho.0002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

When Brandon Granthon told his father he was moving to an apartment at Mulberry and Crescent streets in Harrisburg's crime-ridden Allison Hill neighborhood, Dwane Tennant recalled telling his son to reconsider.

For Granthon, 27, the rent was cheap, and he could walk across the Mulberry Street bridge to Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, where he was a freshman studying computer science.

On Friday evening, Tennant watched as mourners placed candles, flowers, balloons and pictures of Granthon at a memorial set up at the apartment building near where Granthon was shot and killed early Tuesday.

"This area right here, it's real bad," said Tennant, who lives in uptown. "They got kids 12 and 13 years old out here with guns." Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Granthon, who school officials said carried a 4.0 grade-point average, was shot once in the chest and was found lying on his back less than a block from his apartment around 1:10 a.m. He died shortly after arriving at Harrisburg Hospital, making him the city's seventh homicide victim this year -- one shy of the total number of killings in 2008.

Tennant's first son, Kevin T. Evans, was shot to death July 19, 1996, minutes after he and three others robbed Brandon Wallace of cash and drugs at North Fifth and Harris streets. Wallace, then 19, was convicted of third-degree murder.

Police said they found cocaine on Granthon's body, but whether drugs were involved in the killing has not been determined, city spokesman Matthew Coulter said. The claim that Granthon was involved with drugs came as a surprise to those who knew him best.

"I didn't know a person who didn't like Brandon," his friend Ashley Green said. "Everyone adored him and respected him."

Granthon spent a lot of time volunteering, school officials said. He participated in a reading program where he and others read to students at Harrisburg and Steelton schools. He worked a bargain box rummage sale and volunteered at Downtown Daily Bread, a Harrisburg soup kitchen.

Teachers and staff at the university said Granthon was a leader and had a knack for applying what he learned to real-life situations.

"He consistently was a model to the other students," said Jenni Olivetti, a student services administrator. "They watched how he worked and would follow him."

Mourners gathered at the university campus on Market Street just after 5 p.m. and walked, candles in hand, across the Mulberry Street bridge, passing beautiful murals that included one sketch of a blond girl holding a sign with "peace" written on it.

They stopped at Mulberry and Crescent and stood, many sobbing and embracing each other, for more than a half-hour and placed lit candles in white, paper cups among the flowers, balloons and pictures. Granthon's 6-year-old brother, Mark Lindsay, drew a heart on a white piece of paper and placed it against a picture of his brother.

"It feels like I had my heart ripped out of my chest," said Brandon's mother, Theresa Granthon, as she clutched the stem of a small red balloon with "I love you" written on it.

Others struggled to make sense of it and pleaded for answers.

"I just want to know what happened and I want to know why," Green said. "I just want to know why."