Bo Dollis Jr. was looking forward to showing his friend Lionel Delpit III the Mardi Gras suit he's preparing. Dollis had beaded a picture of Delpit's late father, Lionel Delpit Jr., who was big chief of the Black Feather Mardi Gras Indian tribe. "I was telling him, 'Oh, on Mardi Gras when I meet you, I've got a surprise for you,'" Dollis said he told Delpit on Tuesday (Dec. 15). The following night, Delpit, 25, and his girlfriend Breon Stewart, 23, were shot to death as they sat in Delpit's PT Cruiser at the Wind Run apartments in eastern New Orleans, where they lived. Stewart, the 2011 valedictorian at George Washington Carver High School, was pregnant with their son, whose birth was due in less than two weeks. Dollis, who is the son of Bo Dollis Sr., the Wild Magnolias big chief who died in January, said he plans to honor all Indian chiefs with their likenesses on his Mardi Gras suit. That's why he was including Delpit's father. "I could have shown him what I've been working on," Dollis said. Dollis spoke about his friend Thursday night, after helping to lead a traditional Mardi Gras Indian mourning ritual at Hunter's Field, by the Claiborne Avenue-St. Bernard Avenue intersection. At 6 p.m. perhaps 100 people were huddled underneath the Interstate 10 overpass chanting refrains of Mardi Gras Indian songs: Hey Pocky Way, Chief Black Feather, Shallow Water Oh Mama. A single bass drum thundered in tandem with at least half a dozen tambourines that sometimes syncopated and other times rattled in unison. The rhythm players were clustered in a tight circle in the center, where people took turns calling out verses in between refrains. One song seemed to bleed into another spontaneously, punctuated intermittently with guttural howls. A fully outfitted Mardi Gras Indian charged toward the center and back as the swelling crowd moved away from the overpass, into the open field. The calls in between refrains were difficult to understand, but Markeith Tero, a close friend of Delpit who played tambourine, explained they were about Delpit. "We're saying how he was on Mardi Gras day, when he was a little boy messing with his daddy, the color Indian suits he wore. We are telling a story about him," said Tero, who said he is a second chief in the Yellow Pocahontas tribe. "He would have been one of the baddest Indians on the street." New Orleans Police are examining the possibility that multiple shooters may have been involved in the double homicide. Residents outside the Wild Run apartments reported hearing about 20 gunshots, and dozens of evidence markers surrounded the car. Police are waiting on an autopsy to determine whether Stewart's late pregnancy merits additional charges. Police have not named any suspects. Earlier Thursday, Stewart's family gathered in a 7th Ward home. Her twin sister, Britnee, who was salutatorian when Breon was valedictorian, gave birth to her own daughter last week, said the sisters' cousin Kioke Johnson. "She feels like she lost part of her soul," Johnson said.

• published: 18 Dec 2015
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