Editor’s Note: This is the second in a five-part series about the life and death of former ISU student Danny Peterson and how he impacted his family, friends and the detective who pushed everything aside to solve the case. At the end of Monday’s story, the Peterson family was rushing to the hospital after receiving a phone call that Danny had been seriously injured in an accident on a road while walking to a friend’s party.

When Tim, Pat and Chris Peterson arrived at the hospital, there was no one waiting for them with more details about Danny’s accident and condition. The doctors were too busy trying to save his life. A chaplain, though, escorted them to the waiting room, where Ben Bergherr and Joe Kliegl had already been waiting. Their tear-stained faces told the Petersons all they needed to know. The family and two friends hugged as they broke down and cried together.

Mark Peterson, 27, and his sister Laurie Peterson, 25, no longer lived with their parents. But they came home every Sunday, especially when Danny was back from school. This Sunday, though, they weren’t going home to see him. They both received a call from their parents at 3 in the morning to rush to the hospital. One of Laurie’s friends picked them up — they both lived in the Minneapolis area. They sat in the back seat, holding hands, crying, hugging each other more tightly than they ever had before.

It wasn’t until 5 a.m. that the Petersons finally saw a doctor. He did not have many details to give, but he allowed them in to see Danny.

Pat unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her son. She had expected him to be an unrecognizable mass of bandages and casts. There were strange machines attached to him, but aside from a neck brace and a few minor cuts and bruises, Danny was still Danny — on the outside, at least. How he was on the inside, they didn’t know. But the fact that a priest was in there administering the last rites meant this might be the last time they would see him alive. They didn’t wait for the ceremony to finish before they started talking to Danny, hoping that he could hear them.

“We love you … You’re strong. You can do this.”

Waiting for a sign

Later that morning, the doctors had more information about Danny’s condition. He had suffered severe head injuries and the pressure in his brain was dangerously high. The doctors promised nothing. The best-case scenario, they said, is that he would wake up in the next few days and possibly recognize his family.

Mark’s last memory of Danny was of Danny dominating both him and Chris in basketball the previous Sunday. The realization that Danny’s life would be radically changed if he survived only briefly crossed his mind. He just wanted to see Danny alive.

“If he was able to play basketball like he was the week before, I would’ve loved him,” Mark says. “If he were in a wheelchair eating out of a straw, I would’ve loved him too, because he was my brother.”

The news of Danny’s accident took time to spread. The few friends who were already there made the phone calls since the Petersons were too broken up to do it themselves. As soon as the word got out, though, Danny’s well-wishers quickly monopolized the waiting room. The nurses had never seen so many people come for one patient. More than 200 people came by, as much as 60 to 70 people at any one time. Almost all of his fraternity brothers made the trip. Chris’ friends camped in the waiting room between their high school finals. Mark’s coworkers, who hadn’t even met Danny, stopped in during their lunch breaks.

“There was so much love that was brought by these people coming,” Laurie says. “That’s definitely what got us through that week.”

Sometimes the waiting room would even become rowdy — stories about Danny inevitably brought loud laughter. But the visitors could never shake off the somber mood. In the first couple of days, Danny’s condition was so bleak people grasped on to whatever good news there was, even if it was just some obscure vital sign that had temporarily gone back to normal levels.

But when Danny made it to Wednesday, past the critical first 72 hours after his accident, the Petersons took this to mean that he was going to make it. Their hopes seemed confirmed that morning when Pat was in Danny’s room talking to a doctor. Earlier she had been pleading softly with Danny to give her a sign.

“Please Danny, open those eyes,” she said to him. “I want to see those big blue beautiful eyes of yours.”

And Danny’s eyes did open. It was only for a moment. There was no focus in his eyes — it was more reflex than conscious action. But it put everyone in high spirits to think Danny had heard his mother.

“I think he knew I was there, somewhere,” Pat says. “He knew I was there.”

A turn for the worse

The good news of Wednesday, though, made the next day so difficult to accept. Just as suddenly as his eyes opened, Danny’s condition rapidly deteriorated. Fluid built up in his lungs and he developed a high fever. The doctors told the Petersons they had to sedate Danny and put him into a deeper coma as a last-ditch effort to save his life. The Petersons still clung to hope, though, and they organized a prayer service that evening. Mark says when he went back to his apartment, an irrational hope ran through his mind as he went to sleep.

“I thought I was just going to stop by the hospital in the morning and everything was going to be good,” he says. “Like there was going to be magic that night that would fix Danny and make everything all right.”

But nothing changed Friday morning. The doctors’ attempt to save Danny had failed, and that morning Danny’s brain started to die. By the end of the day, he would be completely brain-dead. Tim steeled himself for the worst news all week, telling himself not to overreact to good or bad news. But now there was no longer any point in holding back; the worst news had come.

“It was pretty hard not to react to that,” he says. “It was devastating.”

“We didn’t think it would go the other way,” Pat adds. “He looked so strong.”

Friends had planned to stay at the hospital on Friday so the Petersons could attend Chris’ graduation, but with Danny now at his last breath, there wasn’t any time or interest in going to the ceremony. Chris never put on his cap and gown. The waiting room was mostly empty that afternoon when news of Danny’s condition had gone out.

The respirator was turned off on Saturday morning. Danny’s heart kept beating for about five more minutes. Laurie and Mark were back at their homes after having a candlelight vigil on the beach the night before. They didn’t make it back to the hospital in time. Chris, Pat and Tim held hands and said prayers over Danny. Then the parents stepped out for just a moment to find a printed prayer they wanted to read.

Chris was the only family member in the room with Danny the moment Danny’s heart stopped. He wasn’t looking at the monitor. He was looking at Danny and crying, thinking about what he and Danny would have been doing together that Saturday afternoon if it weren’t for the accident. A nurse noticed when the heartbeat monitor flat-lined and quietly announced:

“He’s gone.”

The family left the hospital feeling completely defeated. A large amount of luggage had accumulated during their weeklong stay, which they had to now mindlessly pick through and put together. It felt, Laurie remembers, like they were a visiting baseball team packing their bags after losing “the worst game of our lives.” After all their hope and waiting, they couldn’t believe they were leaving the hospital without Danny and never coming back.

“That was the most draining week of my life,” Laurie says. “But I would’ve lived that week over and over for 10 years if it had meant Danny would have survived.”

Beginning again

More than 900 mourners crammed into St. Therese’s Catholic Church in Deephaven the following Wednesday for Danny’s funeral. The last few days had been spent hectically preparing for the funeral while being constantly called on by friends and the media. The Petersons still hadn’t had time to recover from their shock. Laurie remembers being scared again. At the hospital, she was scared to see Danny and what he might look like after the accident. Now at the funeral, she was scared this was the last time she would ever see her brother.

Just as in the hospital, the sadness behind Danny’s death mingled with the happy memories of him. Danny’s barber introduced himself to Tim. He had to tell him how no matter how bad his day was going, when he saw Danny’s name on his schedule, he knew he would have at least 30 minutes of fun that day.

Zach McQuistan, one of Danny’s fraternity brothers and now junior in finance at Iowa State, showed the Petersons a picture of his baby girl. She had been born the day before the funeral and her name was “Danielle,” in memory of Danny.

After the funeral, a curious onlooker asked someone who had stayed behind, “Wow, who died? A senator?”

A sense of duty

Some of the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department attended the wake. Danny’s death had hit them all hard. Most of the 15 officers watching over a sleepy community of 10,000 had never dealt with anything like a hit-and-run fatality. Jack Talbot, the detective leading the investigation, met the Petersons the morning after the accident. After talking to them, he knew this would be a special case.

“I never saw them once get mad,” he says in awe.

It hurt him especially to see Tim’s grief. He had a daughter who was Danny’s age, and he could only imagine the unbearable rage and helplessness he himself would’ve felt if she died like Danny did. He wasn’t going to let this case go unsolved.

“As dumb as it sounds,” he says. “I made a promise to them that I would catch this person.”

Talbot didn’t know then how hard it would be to keep that promise.

About this series

This series was inspired by a Minneapolis Star-Tribune July 12 article headlined, “Who struck down Danny Peterson? A detective won’t let go,” about a Minnesota police department and its almost obsessive search for the driver who killed Danny.

The Daily learned from the Star-Tribune and the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department in February that the driver had been arrested and sentenced. This prompted the Daily to find out the complete story behind what happened to Danny.

The events surrounding his life and death is derived from the accounts of 10 of the major people involved, including Danny’s family and the detectives working his case. The Daily also visited the Peterson home and the spot where Danny’s accident took place.

Articles from Minnesota newspapers, the transcript of the sentencing hearing, the text of Danny’s eulogy and victim impact statements to the judge were also sources for this story.