A few of them were old friends. A few were strangers. Some barely knew the

others' names.
But early last Sunday, the 10 young lives came together in a hurtling instant

at the corner of S. 35th St. and W. Greenfield Ave., and two people died.
A witness would describe a heart stopping thump on that cold street corner at

1:08am. Then silence. Then pandemonium. A tragic two car accident had ended a

regular, dull, hard drinking Wisconsin Saturday night.
Earlier that day, for once, no one had to remind 20 year old Brian Sullivan to

wash the kitchen floor. He knew that the next day was his sister corine's ninth birthday

party.
Afternoon chores done, he washed his blond hair, pretty as a girl's. It was his

vanity. "He wore it long because the girls liked it," Brian's mother Kathleen, said of her

only son. Brian had at least two devoted girlfriends and dozens of buddies.
Sullivan was cracking jokes as usual at dinner. His father, Martin, 51, an

account representative for Hydrute Chemical Co., said, "He loved to make you laugh."
After supper, wearing a thermal shirt against the zero weather, Brian Sullivan

left for a party held somewhere around 24th St. and National Ave. No one ever pinned

down the location, but people said the host was giving himself a send-off. He was

going to jail, for battery or manslaughter or something.
Sullivan was driving his pride and joy, a 1976 blue Dodge van given to him by

his grandfather in August. He went first to pick up a buddy from 52nd St., Christopher

Blake, 18. Then they went to pick up ScottN Negley, 17, Sullivan's neighbor and friend.
Sullivan was getting his life together, Negley said later. He'd seen less of

Sullivan, who'd been working regularly as a cement finisher. It seemed that Sullivan's

wild times, which led to a conviction for stealing a car battery in 1985, a fine for driving

after license revocation in 1987 and an underage drinking rap in 1987, might be

ending.
Sullivan, Blake and Negley picked up Jeffrey Cline, 16, another buddy, at his

house on S. 51st St. then they all headed for the party.
To Cline the party was cool, a heavy-metal dream. The music was deafening,

the strobe lights pulsing. A door sign read: No Fighting. No Stealing. No Minors.
In the crowd, Negley spotted a high school aquaintance, Maria Armstrong.

There were introductions all around, the four guys meeting Maria, 17, and two of the

girls who had grown up with her on W. Upham Ave., Jerilynn Sutherland and Kelly

Neumiller, both 18.
The girls' evening together had begun as Sutherland and Armstrong nibbled

pizza just before 8pm.
"Saturday night and no place to go." Sutherland's Mother, Barbara Stahl,

teased.
Well, there was one hope: a party they had heard about from an old Pulaski

High School friend. For once, Sutherland was hesitant. But it was a chance for

Armstrong and Neumiller, both mothers with young babies, to have a rare night out. So

they agreed. The friend who'd asked them, a guy called Ziggy, would drive.
Everyone entering the party had to put down an age in a guest book. No

problem for the girls: they all wrote 19.
Sutherland had a few Southern Comforts with Mountain Dew, but she passed

on joints. The place was too weird for her.
The party went on. Sullivan, Armstrong recalled, was up, excited. Then

someone called him obnoxious. A fight broke out. The host apologized, "Man, you guys

have to leave."
The girls couldn't find Ziggy, but Sullivan offered a ride. Well, Sutherland

didn't want to call her mother. She knew her mother would get mad.
Blake took the passenger seat. The rest climbed into the back. No one

strapped on a seat belt. By 1 am they were heading north on 35th St. over the viaduct,

Sullivan still fuming over his ejection from the party. It was that, not drinking, what led

to what happened, said his loyal friend, Negley.
Sutherland wonders what would have happened if she'd waited a few more

seconds to tell Brian he had to go the other way on 35th St. to take them home.

Sullivan pulled a U-turn. "Then he floored it," she said.
Sutherland screamed, " Let me out right now! You're going to fast!"
Timothy Strum, 24, and his friend, Melinda Brown-Ewell, 30, were stopped at

the light on 35th St. and Greenfield Ave. As the van passed them, Brown-Ewell

thought, " It's going to run the light."
Coming west on Greenfield was Chris Blomberg, 26, driving his Dodge

pickup, Riding with him were Jamie Schweitzer, 27, and John Eigenauer, 23, of

Franklin.
Schweitzer had knocked off at noon from his Saturday shift at Maynard Steel

Casting Co. He spent the afternoon napping at his parents' Franksville home, where

he'd moved after his divorce. It was too cold for outings with one or more of his 20

nieces and nephews, a weekend routine Schweitzer loved.
He had planned a lazy night at home, but then he agreed to go to a bar with

Chris Blomberg, of Caledonia. After dinner, he told his parents goodby.
Not long after, Schweitzer, Blomberg and Eigenauer settled down for three

hours of friendly drinking at Scott E.'s, a tavern at 2800 W. Forest Home Ave.
Sometime before 1am, they piled into Blomberg's truck to head for another

bar, in West Allis. Blomberg snapped on his seat belt, but Eigenauer, sitting in the

center, and Schweitzer on the passenger side, did not.
Just as they drove into the intersection at S. 35th St., Blomberg saw a flash

of headlights where no headlights should have been.
Lewis Barger, 42, traveling on 35th St. about 300 feet behind Sullivan's van,

heard a colossal whump. The van left the ground. Seconds later, Berger pulled up.

Spinning wheels, crying kids. Glass frosting the frosty ground.
Barger, an IBM engineer with two teenagers of his own, smelled the evil brew

of blood, gasoline and booze. Beer bottles lay broken in the street.
Sutherland woke up upside down. Her friends bodies were piled on top of her.

Hands pulled her out of the van. She saw Brian Sullivan for the last time, on thr

ground. He'd been thrown from the van. Sutherland said softly, "There was blood."
Milwaukee Police Officers Simo Miljus, 30, and Harry Gorecki, 40, were

cruising at S. 26th St. and W. Mitchell Ave. when the call came at 1:10am. By the time

they arrived, bystanders had hauled Sullivan from under the van. "I could tell right away

that he was dead, " Miljus said.
Miljus would say later that with seat belts, no one need have died.
Bruised and dazed, but not seriously hurt, Negley and Cline wandered away

from the van to call their parents. The street began to fill up with the curious, with

ambulences, and then with anguished parents begging of the police, "Where's my kid?"
Kelly Neumiller woke to hear her friend screaming, "Kelly's dead! Kelly's

dead!"
"But I'm alive," Neumiller thought before she passed out. The next faces she

saw were those of surgeons. Her head gash would take 100 stitches to close.
At 2:30am., at St. Lukes Medical Center, Jerilynn Sutherland, only bruised,

ran into her mother's arms. Armstrong's face was raw with rugburns. Blake's arm was

broken.
Injuries in the truck were worse. Blomberg had broken ribs and facial cuts

and spent a week at St. Luke's. He was released Saturday. Eigenauer had internal

injuries, a broken nose and a broken leg, and will have surgery monday at the

Milwaukee County Medical Complex.
Brian Sullivan was pronounced dead at the Medical Complex at 2:10am.,

Jamie Schweitzer at 2:17am.
The longest day of Martin and Kathleen Sullivan's life together began at 4am.

With a call from Scott Negley's mother. When a squad car appeared outside an hour

later, "We knew what the news would be," Martin Sullivan said.
Brian Sullivan's sister Corine never had her ninth birthday party. Tuesday, at

his wake, his friends played a tape of the song they'd requested from a local radio

station in honor of a guy who loved a party: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."
The bad news caught up with Jamie Schweitzer's mother, Helen, at 6am

Sunday. When she opened the back door, there stood John Eigenauer's father, John, a

25 year verteran with the Franklin Police Department.
"He told me that the boys had been in a real bad accident. Then he said,

"Mrs. Schweitzer, I'm real sorry, but Jamie didn't make it."
The two then went into the bedroom to tell her husband, Al, who suffered a

stroke six years ago and is unable to talk.
Jerilynn Sutherland's bruises are healing, but she can't look at her bedroom

mirrors at night. She's afraid she'll see Brian Sullivan's still, white face or hear his

voice.
"I'll never get into a car with anyone who's drinking again," she said. "Not

ever."