KALAMAZOO, MI -- Advocates and family members are hopeful the Michigan Attorney General’s Office will be able to resolve a 35-year-old investigation into the death of Erik Cross.

According to a Monday, Feb. 25 news release, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office and the Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office asked the Michigan Attorney General to review the homicide investigation. During the last few years, a group of family members and dedicated supporters sought to pressure Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting to authorize charges against suspects in the case.

Cross was a 16-year-old Vicksburg High School student when police suspect he was intentionally hit with a vehicle while walking to his family’s home. Cross was found lying in the roadway in the 5100 block of East Y Avenue in the early morning of June 26, 1983.

Arrest warrants were requested in October 2017 for people suspected of being involved in his death, but Getting did not file charges. Detectives have said previously that they’ve focused on a core group of four to five people who were either directly involved in Cross’ death or victims of circumstance, but have lacked enough information to make an arrest.

A friend of the Cross family, Melissa Hatfield, said she hopes Attorney General Dana Nessel will have good news before the 36-year anniversary of Cross’ death. Hatfield said the development was made possible by years of grassroots efforts to raise awareness and collect evidence in partnership with the county sheriff’s office.

“It’s just overwhelming,” Hatfield said. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, and the family and the group doesn’t, but this is the most movement since those arrest warrant requests in 36 years and it’s overdue."

“At least they’re taking the time to say this needs to be closed. This case has gone on too long. It does need some resolution. Finally someone in authority in the state of Michigan will take a look at this boy’s case and see if it will go somewhere."

Hatfield was Cross’ classmate when he was murdered. She became more involved in efforts to find his killer after she found a Facebook group in 2010 started by his sister, Jackie Mitchell.

Members of “Erik’s Army” and “Justice for Erik” spread information about the case across the country through social media, billboards, posters and flyers. Hatfield said the effort revealed previously unknown witnesses to police, slowly putting together “pieces of a puzzle” that formed a clearer image over time.

“One poster at a time reaches one person at a time,” Hatfield said. “If we can reach one person that has a piece of information, we’ll get them to police and keep pushing in there as quickly as we can find people.”

Hatfield said advocates never received a response to hundreds of handwritten appeals to former Attorney General Bill Schuette. She has more confidence that Nessel will resolve the case.

“I don’t know that Nessel is someone who messes around,” Hatfield said. “I don’t know the lady, but I have a feeling that she is stepping into a position where she could do a lot of good here and change a lot for a lot of people by resolving this.”

Hatfield said she wasn’t given any indication of how long the review could take Nessel’s office.

Every year, supporters and family members retrace the route Cross would have walked on his way home on the night of his death.

“To know that he made it home and was then taken is one of those things that really hits you when you walk down that road," Hatfield said. "He thought he was home and the next time he came home he was dead.”