It started as a night out. It ended in a killing that, two weeks later, still has no arrests.
Alexander “Xander” Kazanowski, a 25-year-old Chicago resident and father expecting his second child, died after being beaten outside a bar in the Avondale neighborhood in the early hours of March 25. Police say he was found unresponsive around 3:20 a.m., suffering from injuries consistent with blunt force trauma. He was taken to a hospital but died days later.
What happened in the minutes before that remains central to the investigation. According to local reporting, Kazanowski had been asked to leave the bar after making comments inside. Once outside, he became involved in a verbal exchange with a group. At some point after that confrontation, he was attacked.
Chicago police have since released surveillance images of four people they want to question—three men and one woman—who were seen at the bar that night.
The footage shows them entering the establishment, though authorities have not clarified whether it was recorded before or after the assault. As of now, those individuals have not been located.
The case has drawn attention not only because of the circumstances, but because of who Kazanowski was. He worked as a model, appearing in wedding and bridal campaigns, and described himself as the founder of a local service business. Friends and family portrayed him as driven and charismatic, someone building both a career and a young family.
He leaves behind his partner and their young daughter, along with a son who is expected to be born soon. In the days following his death, his partner shared a brief message online that reflected both grief and familiarity, referencing small, personal details that defined him far more than the headlines now do.
There was one final decision that stood out. Kazanowski was an organ donor, and his family said that choice resulted in multiple lives being saved. It’s a detail that sits in stark contrast to the violence that ended his own.
For investigators, the focus remains on identifying and locating the four individuals seen that night and piecing together exactly how a confrontation outside a bar escalated into a fatal attack. For his family, that process is running parallel to something else entirely—the sudden absence of someone they expected to grow old with.
