Marcia Shaheed pulled a framed photograph of her son out of a bag and placed it on the table.

She wanted a visitor to see the handsome young man who was shot and killed at age 17. Her son Eddie Amaan Shaheed was walking home from a Checkers hamburger restaurant when he was hit by a stray bullet fired from the backyard of a house he had just passed on Allegheny Street in Atlanta. He was possibly the innocent, unintended victim of a drunken quarrel.

Ben Gray/AJC/Staff (ENLARGE)

Marcia Shaheed is working to establish an organization for young people in memory of her son Eddie, who was killed by a stray bullet as he walked home from getting something to eat with friends.

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Eddie Amaan Shaheed was killed three years ago, yet nobody has been charged.

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That was more than three years ago. Today, as Marcia Shaheed works to establish an organization for young people in her son's memory, she says of his death: "I don't really know the story."

What she does know is information that she, his father and a family friend got through their own investigating. She said there also has been a little information from police.

Arrests were made but the suspects were released. No one has been charged.

Marcia Shaheed and her ex-husband, Abdur-Rahim Shaheed, say they know about the people who killed their son, but only by their nicknames: "Monster" and "Noonie" or "Stack."

And Marcia and Abdur-Rahim Shaheed say the police and District Attorney Paul Howard know who killed her son as well.

"They called me on a Wednesday [after the shooting] and said 'We have them. We've arrested them,'" she said. "Two days later, [the police] called and said 'Something happened and we're not going to be able to hold them.' They couldn't say what.

I felt like my 17-year-old's life wasn't worth a darn."

The case may have been permanently damaged.

The problem, said Lt. Keith Meadows, who heads the Atlanta Police Department's homicide unit, was with the eyewitness identification. The witness identified two of the three suspects from a photo array, but the man the witness said was the shooter was actually in a Louisiana prison at the time.

"Unfortunately, Eddie's case was assigned to an inexperienced homicide detective ... who made some identification errors that might have permanently tainted this case," Howard said. "My office has met with the Atlanta homicide department on several occasions in an attempt to correct the problems. We will continue this effort."

The case was reassigned to a tested detective, Brett Zimbrick, and Meadows is certain Zimbrick will eventually resolve it. But nothing is expected anytime soon.

Eddie Amaan Shaheed's parents say he was a good kid.

Meadows agreed. He said the teenager's life seemed to be headed in the right direction and he is dead only because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Eddie Amaan Shaheed's parents were divorced and the soon-to-be senior at Booker T. Washington High School lived with his father off Cascade Road in southwest Atlanta.

That day, he had walked down the street to meet friends from his previous school, Woodward Academy, and to get something to eat.

He was walking home when he was killed.

Just moments after the shooting, coincidentally, Abdur-Rahim Shaheed dialed his son's cellphone. But someone else answered, saying only "hello" before disconnecting the call.

Then Abdur-Rahim Shaheed heard the ambulance siren.

He followed the sound to the spot where his son was killed, and people in the crowd provided details.

The Shaheeds heard several versions of what happened in the backyard of a house on Allegheny Street at the corner of Cascade Road. One said there was a gambling dispute that prompted one of the card players to pull a gun and shoot at another. According to different version, one young man "disrespected" another's car so the one slighted got a weapon.

In the years since, the Shaheeds and a family friend, Mason Daldred, have done their own investigating, door-to-door and by telephone. The problem is that many witnesses have moved.

"I'm pretty much back to my own investigation," Marcia Shaheed said. "I don't want to be consumed with it, but when you don't hear from anybody ... you think [the case is] closed."

The Shaheeds have created an organization called Mon's House Inc. that will offer tutors and a volunteer attorney who practices in juvenile court for young people and their familes. Marcia Shaheed wants her son to be remembered through the effort.

Howard insists that Eddie Amaan Shaheed's case is not forgotten.

"I ... remain personally invested with this case," Howard wrote in an e-mail. "We will never forget Eddie or what happened to him. We will continue to work ... to bring Eddie's killer to justice."