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Ask Dru Estes’ parents what the past year has been like and they’ll tell you.

“It’s been miserable,” said his mother, Cheryl Estes. “I tell people I have my bad days, and I have my not-so-bad days.”

“It’s always the same thing that’s wrong — Dru’s dead,” said his father, Troy Estes. “It’s so unbelievable.”

Almost a year has passed since the San Antonio couple’s 20-year-old son was killed along with four other young adults in a massive fire that authorities say was intentionally set at Iconic Village Apartments in San Marcos, several blocks from the Texas State University campus.

The Estes family and other parents who lost children in that catastrophe still don’t know who ignited the blaze or why. They are left with only memories and the tumultuous emotions that accompany such a profound loss.

As the anniversary of the July 20 disaster approaches, investigators said they still are getting tips from the public and developing leads.

Officials don’t have a definite suspect, San Marcos Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner confirmed. They remain confident the mystery can be solved, he said.

Dru, a self-taught musician and songwriter who played on the drum line in Texas State’s Bobcat Marching Band, would have celebrated his 21st birthday Friday. To mark the occasion, his family traveled to Nashville. Dru had been planning that trip with his parents up until the night before he died.

“It’s going to be bittersweet,” said Cheryl, 50, the daily operations manager at Strong Foundation Ministries, a nonprofit that serves homeless families. “I don’t even know if I want to go. I’m nervous and anxious about going. Sometimes I feel guilty if I am just a little bit happy — so that’s part of it.”

The youngest of six siblings, Dru was easygoing with a love for books, coffee, roller coasters and music. He had a girlfriend in New Braunfels. He fronted the San Marcos band Apt. 216, in which he sang and played guitar.

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His teen years were free of conflict and drama. Blessed with an affable nature, he didn’t judge others and rarely became angry, his parents said.

“If you were rude to him, it didn’t matter — he let it go,” said Troy, who assembles trucks at Toyota’s manufacturing plant on the South Side. “He loved everybody. … He was too good to be true sometimes.”

Dru graduated from San Antonio’s Roosevelt High School in 2016 and went on to Texas State, where he had just finished his sophomore year at the time of his death. He told his parents he wanted to take a year off from school to figure out his future plans.

Reward offered Anyone with information about the fire at Iconic Village Apartments in San Marcos is asked to call 1-888-ATF-TIPS (1-888-283-8477). The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the identification or arrest of the person who ignited the blaze.

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But he was unable to break his Iconic Village lease, which he’d renewed five months before the fire.

“Any other kid would have left,” his mother said. “But we taught him responsibility. We told him if you sign that lease, you’ve got to follow it through. Now I’m kicking myself. I should have just let him come home.”

On ExpressNews.com: ‘Everyone was so young’ — an analysis of the deadly San Marcos fire

Dru loved living at the privately owned apartments at 222 Ramsay St. and never complained about the maintenance or safety there, his parents said.

At the time of the fire, he lived alone because his roommate had gone to the Houston area for the summer. Dru resided in an upstairs corner unit in Building 500 — the same structure where the other victims died and where another person suffered critical burns but survived.

Last visit

On his last night alive, Dru went to San Antonio and recorded his final song — “When I’m With You,” a tune he had written with his friend, Daniella Santillan. The raw demo track, a tribute to Dru’s girlfriend, was taped in a recording studio belonging to Santillan’s father. Dru performed it alone, singing and playing his guitar. It was around 6 p.m., less than 12 hours before the fire.

Then he visited his parents’ house and had dinner with them. No one knew it would be the last time.

“It was beautiful. … That was a gift from God,” Troy, 50, said of his son’s final visit.

He recalled telling Dru how proud he was of him.

“We know God sent him here that day so we could say goodbye to him,” Cheryl agreed. “We could tell him we loved him. And I’m thankful for that.”

When they parted ways, Dru and his mother hugged and she tickled him, their usual ritual.

“He said, ‘Mom, you always do that. … Don’t ever stop,’” she recalled, crying at the memory.

The inferno erupted at Dru’s apartment building two hours before sunrise as most residents slept. The first 911 call came in at 4:27 a.m. Flames quickly engulfed the entire structure, wrapping around the roof before the first fire engine arrived.

Dru’s family wouldn’t find out about it for at least five hours.

Later that morning, Cheryl received an instant message from Dru’s girlfriend, asking if anybody had heard from him and alerting her of the fire. Cheryl repeatedly called Dru’s cellphone, but got no answer. She and her husband drove to San Marcos.

Along the way, they called hospitals and an emergency hotline, searching for their son to no avail.

They eventually were directed to a San Marcos church, where all the families of those missing from the apartments gathered. Officials from the San Marcos Fire Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also were there.

Troy’s and Cheryl’s worst fears were confirmed, but not in words.

“When we walked in and they heard who we were, the way they looked at us, we knew,” Troy said.

On ExpressNews.com: Victims’ families stunned that deadly apartment fire was deliberate

“I knew immediately when he didn’t answer his phone, he wasn’t at any of the hospitals,” Cheryl said of her son. “He would have called me. And he didn’t. I told them, ‘I know he’s dead. I know he’s in there.’”

All of the families learned that night that firefighters couldn’t immediately go into the destroyed building to search for victims because the ruins were too hot and unstable. The fire still was burning. The families were told it would probably be two days before searches could begin.

“We were all just kind of looking at each other,” Troy recalled, “because we know we’re all in the same boat, but we don’t know each other.”

Three bodies were pulled from the rubble two days after the fire. Two more were recovered the day after that.

Dru Estes was among them. The others were David Angel Ortiz, 21, of Pasadena; Haley Michele Frizzell, 19, of San Angelo; Belinda Moats, 21, of Big Wells; and James Phillip Miranda, 23, of Mount Pleasant.

Another victim, Zachary Sutterfield, then 20, of San Angelo, suffered critical injuries when he barely escaped by jumping from a second-floor outdoor balcony as the flames raged out of control.

He survived a traumatic brain injury and third-degree burns over 68 percent of his body. He’s still recovering.

All of the victims had been on the second floor of Building 500. Sutterfield was in the same apartment as Ortiz and Frizzell. Moats and Miranda were in separate apartments.

Dru died from thermal injuries and smoke inhalation. He was identified through his dental records.

His parents said they don’t know where exactly his body was found.

“They won’t tell us,” Cheryl Estes said of the investigators. “I don’t know if I want to know.”

Unsolved mystery

Dru’s bed was right by a window, which directly faced a parking lot. His parents believe he would have tried to jump out that window if he woke up during the fire. They are hoping he died in his sleep.

They both still are stunned that he’s gone.

“I tell God every day, ‘I just can’t believe he’s dead,’” Cheryl said. “I can’t imagine a day where I won’t feel like this. Ever.”

She hasn’t been able to forgive the unidentified person who set the fire.

“God tells us that we have to forgive,” she said. “How can I forgive somebody that killed my son? Somebody I don’t even know?

“What bothers me is that on his death certificate, it says ‘homicide.’ I could have dealt with an accident, you know? That would have been easier to deal with. But somebody killed him. Whether purposefully or inadvertently. How could somebody set that apartment on fire and not think they might kill somebody — five somebodies?”

Investigators haven’t publicly revealed where or how the blaze was ignited.

Troy said he prays for the person who set the disaster in motion. But he also asks for what he describes as God’s justice “because God knows what happened.”

Living with the secret has “got to be horrible,” he added.

The couple said they don’t expect the case to be solved, noting the length of time that has passed with no resolution.

“If they don’t figure out who it is, we’re never going to have any closure,” Cheryl said.

Kistner said it’s not unusual that the investigation still is open.

“Arson cases can take anywhere from hours to years to solve,” the San Marcos fire marshal said, because of “the complexity of the evidence, the required testing (and) the overall number of pieces that have to be put together.

“We believe that there is somebody who knows something, and we’re trying to get to that person or persons.”

The ATF continues to assist with the investigation.

Dru’s parents have sued the owners and managers of Iconic Village Apartments, as have the parents of all the other victims killed. Sutterfield’s parents also sued, along with a number of former tenants who survived. Those lawsuits are pending.

The defendants have denied any wrongdoing.

Shortly after the fire, some residents said their smoke detectors didn’t sound or were triggered too late. Video footage reviewed by investigators revealed some smoke detectors worked at the time of the emergency, but it’s unknown how soon those devices sounded or in which apartments they were located.

The only items salvaged from Dru’s apartment were two coffee cups and a three-ring binder entitled “Dru’s Drum Music.” The binder itself was destroyed, but the pages inside are being preserved.

Dru’s 2005 Saab hatchback, which was parked outside his building, sits in his parents’ driveway today.

His parents also still have Dru’s recorded music. The sounds of his singing filled their house recently as they played his songs and shared memories of him.

And they have faith that Dru is in heaven.

“One day we’ll see him again ... That’s what gets me through day in and day out, why I’m not in a ball in the closet crying,” Cheryl said.

“We know he doesn’t have a care in the world ... As the song goes, we can only imagine,” Troy said. “That’s comforting.”

Peggy O’Hare covers housing, demographics and the census in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare