Barbed comments 'about nothing' blamed for deaths of father and son

on January 13, 2012 at 11:00 PM, updated January 14, 2012 at 9:51 AM

Sabrina Elliott looks back and wishes, more than anything, that she had kept mum. But on Saturday night, says Elliott, she asked her downstairs neighbor not to cuss the teenage girls in her household. The two neighbors then traded a few more barbs, "about nothing," Elliott said.

Not long afterward, her oldest son, Joseph Elliott, 17, and his father, Joseph Evans, 41, were shot dead in the foyer of the double house in Mid-City. The two will be buried today.

The story is shocking even for a city where tiny provocations can lead to bloodshed.

Elliott, 36, says it started earlier that evening, when a loud commotion broke out downstairs and six of her children and a visiting 16-year-old girl ran to the window to see what was happening. They discovered it was just their downstairs neighbor, arguing with her fiance, Tabari Butler, she said.

As they all stood there at the window, Elliott contends, the neighbor lady looked up at them and called Elliott, her 16-year-old daughter and the other 16-year-old "whores," insinuating that they all lusted after Butler.

Fed up, Elliott told the neighbor "not to disrespect my kids."

The neighbor said, "F__ you and your kids" and threatened to call child-protective services on her, Elliott said.

Butler, 25, then left, then returned with his friend Joseph Tate, 20. Witnesses say the pair opened fire outside Elliott's front door. On Monday, police booked Butler and Tate with two counts of first-degree murder.

tabari_butler_joseph_tate_color.jpgView full sizeTabari Butler, left, and Joseph Tate

Sabrina Elliott still doesn't understand why it happened. "Why did they shoot?" she said.

Melisa Marshall, 23, last saw Joseph Elliott, her fiance, early Sunday, as he lay dead next to his father, inside the foyer of his mother's apartment.

"Senseless," Marshall said, as she stood in front of the now-dark duplex and adjusted blankets against the cold night for the couple's swaddled son, 6-month-old Joe Elliott, Jr.

Marshall was on the phone with her fiance when he arrived at his mother's house last Saturday night to get a package of diapers for the baby and to pick up his younger brother, who stays with the young couple in the Carrollton neighborhood.

Marshall heard "fussing" that her fiance tried to defuse. "You're neighbors," she heard him say. Then the phone went dead.

Elliott was known as "the reconciler" because he made peace anytime tensions arose, said Lisa Fitzpatrick, head of the nearby APEX Community Center.

The center is hosting a day of service on Monday in honor of Elliott, "a bright, shining star" who started a Sunday-night worship group for teens and pitched in whenever anyone needed help. "He was the finest young man I knew," Fitzpatrick said.

Evans's boss, Nancy Easterling, owner of Food Art, had similar praise for Evans, a dishwasher for her catering company, whom she described as "a hard worker and an all-around terrific person."

The New Orleans Police Department news release about the murder noted that police had interviewed neighbors and that "the verbal dispute involved accusations of infidelity between members of both households."

The department had no further explanation. But Elliott said that she made no such accusation.

And Elliott's friends say that he was devoted to Marshall.

And while Evans and Elliott worked together to raise their children, Evans had long been devoted to his wife, Michelle Evans, friends say. So when co-worker Brad Duskin saw the NOPD account, he didn't believe it. "That had nothing to do with Joe," he said.

True to Evans' character, friends say, he took the bulk of the bullets on Saturday because he tried to protect his son.

Both were hit multiple times and declared dead on the scene.

The downstairs neighbor couldn't be reached for this story. Elliott said that the neighbor stood in the doorway and yelled, "'No, don't shoot.'"

The gunmen ignored her, Elliott said.

Katy Reckdahl can be reached at or 504.826.3396.