Marvin Pepp, 56, was a Black man from New Orleans, Louisiana, and on the evening of February 26, 2022, he found himself in the middle of Carnival weekend’s noise and crowds near the Lafitte Greenway. Not long before 7 p.m., the celebration outside gave way to panic in the 2900 block of Conti Street, where people were gathered along the edge of the parade-night bustle, some of them stopping for food as Endymion rolled nearby.
When gunfire erupted, it struck multiple people in a sudden burst that bystanders later described as crossfire. Police responding to the scene found three victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Pepp and another man, Donald Roberts Jr., were pronounced dead at the location. A third victim, 15-year-old Heaven Nettles, was rushed to a hospital and later died from her injuries, turning what began as a chaotic shooting into a triple homicide that stunned residents and visitors alike.
In the days immediately after the killings, investigators publicly focused on piecing together what happened and who opened fire. Coverage at the time indicated police had not announced a motive or identified suspects, and the case was treated as an active homicide investigation, with authorities urging anyone who saw something—no matter how small—to come forward and help detectives reconstruct the moments leading up to the shots.
Away from the headlines, those who knew Pepp remembered a man with roots in the city: he was known as Marvin “Bald Head” Pepp, Sr., educated in Orleans Parish schools, and a graduate of George Washington Carver Senior High School, where he developed a passion for auto mechanics. As family and friends gathered weeks later to honor him, the grief carried an extra weight—because the night he was killed was not supposed to end in sirens, and because public reporting around the investigation offered no clear closure in the form of an arrest or named suspect.
