Man murdered while in vehicle with female rapper On a Monday afternoon, just before 12:30 PM on December 20, 2010, 25-year-old Jerome 'Man Man' Hampton was a passenger in a white Chevrolet Malibu in New Orleans. He was with his friend, Renetta 'Magnolia Shorty' Lowe, who was driving. They were leaving her apartment complex when their vehicle was ambushed.
As the Malibu slowed for speed bumps, a white Ford Crown Victoria with five men inside lay in wait.
One man exited the vehicle and began shooting, causing Lowe to crash into a fence in the 6300 block of Bridgehampton Drive. Following the crash, four more men from the Crown Victoria emerged and opened fire on the car. One of the assailants stood on the roof of the Malibu, firing through the sunroof to ensure the occupants were dead. Both Hampton and Lowe were pronounced dead at the scene, having sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the head and body. Lowe was reportedly shot over 25 times.
The sheer brutality of the crime prompted the New Orleans FBI Gang Task Force to take over the investigation. Rumors circulated that Hampton was a wanted man and that the shooting was in retaliation for a killing he allegedly committed in 2005.
In August 2014, a grand jury indicted four suspected members of the '39er's' gang for the murders of Hampton and Lowe. A key figure in the prosecution was Gregory “Rabbit” Stewart, another member of the 39'ers, who became a crucial confidential informant for the FBI. Stewart testified against his fellow gang members, detailing how he, along with McCoy “Rat” Walker, Terrioues “T-Red” Owney, Tyrone 'T-Bone' Knockum, and Rico 'Freaky' Jackson, carried out the shooting. Court documents later confirmed that Stewart admitted to being one of the five individuals responsible for the murders as part of a guilty plea related to his involvement in a heroin trafficking organization and the violent activities of the G-Strip and 39ers gangs.
