JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Back in 1998, Ricardo Tilman Jr. was a prominent figure at Jacksonville University. He was a key player on the university’s first-ever football team and was dearly admired by his peers and teammates.

Tilman ran in the first touchdown in the school’s history, a perfect spiral from quarterback Gary Cooper, right into his hands.

“I see him running down the field and threw it up for him and he caught it and ran it in for the touchdown,” said Cooper. “It was something special.”

The team was tight-knit and Cooper said Tilman, or “Rico” as they called him, was the heart of it.

“He was one of the funniest people I knew,” said Cooper. “You know there was never one person on my team I heard say something negative about him.”

Which is why what happened two years later was such a shock.

It was March 19, 2000. Tilman, Cooper and some of their teammates went to Jazzco, a club they frequented in Arlington.

Among his acquaintances was Talmadge Ford Jr., who is now an officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. In 2000, he not only played for the JU football team but also worked as a security guard at Jazzco on the night of the incident, witnessing the arrival of his teammates.

“I was like, ‘Hey, you all good, get in and have a good time,'” Junior said.

Cooper said he remembers some of the team getting into an argument with another group of men there, but it was resolved.

“It led to nothing, actually it led to shaking hands, nothing big,” he said.

As Jazzco was closing, Cooper said he left in another car and Junior was in another section of the club clearing people out when he heard a fight had broken out in the parking lot amongst a group of people and Tilman had been hurt.

“Everybody was trying to figure out what was going on with Rico,” said Junior.

He says the scene was chaotic.

“We didn’t really know who was involved because there were so many people coming out and dispersing and going different directions,” Junior said.

Investigators say it appears Tilman was trying to protect his teammates and their girlfriends when he was stabbed in the back. Though the injury was serious, he was still alive and transported to the hospital.

After a surgery and a few days in recovery, he was released from what was then Shands Hospital in Jacksonville. His parents and four sisters were optimistic about his recovery.

“He was struggling to walk, but he was still joking and laughing, and all the providers said he was going to be find, so there was really not a lot to worry about at that time,” said Tilman’s sister, Monique Dillard.

Then, he began to run a fever and became very ill.

“So, I took him back to the doctor and they put him back in the hospital,” said Tilman’s mother, Dorothy Tilman.

“All of a sudden, it just went bad,” said Ricardo Tilman, his father.

A staph infection had taken hold of Rico’s wound, and on April 10, 2000, it claimed his life.

“So, we had no idea, we didn’t expect it at all, it hit us like a train,” said Tilman’s sister, Richarnda Barrett. “We didn’t expect him to pass away.”

Since the infection was a result of the initial stabbing, Tilman’s death was classified as a homicide. But, the homicide detectives picking up the case were at a major disadvantage.

“Detectives have to now go back and try to piece together something that has happened two weeks prior,” said Detective Travis Oliver with the Cold Case Unit at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

Oliver says it appears there was a miscommunication at the scene at Jazzco and responding officers were told Tilman’s injuries were not life-threatening.

“Based on that miscommunication, the police didn’t do what would normally be done at a scene where it was [a] life-threatening injury,” Oliver said.

The scene wasn’t preserved and witnesses were not detained or interviewed that night. So, the names of the other men involved in the fight remain a mystery.

“That’s the information we need: who were the guys fighting,” Oliver said.

A sketch was made of the man who possibly stabbed Tilman, but his identity is still unknown. The wait for answers has been painful for the Tilman family.

“It is an ache that could never be replaced,” said Dillard. “It changed the way we viewed the world.”

But, Tilman’s family still prays every day for answers.

“If anybody hears me please, somebody say something,” said Tilman’s father. “It has been 25 years our family has been going through this.”

Oliver hopes those in the community that were at Jazzco that night or know something will come forward.

“You rely on each other to protect each other,” said Tilman’s father. “It is a fight that went south, extremely south, and we just need those people to come forward and let the facts come out and we deal with those facts.”

If you know anything about the fight at Jazzco in March 2000 that led to the death of Ricardo Tilman Junior, contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477).