NEW ORLEANS — A 31-year-old man has been arrested and booked on a count of second-degree murder after police said he crashed his car into a building on St. Roch Avenue Monday, intentionally killing a female victim.
Family members have identified her as 21-year-old Anastasia Rei Rayborn.
Anthony Cooper was detained at the scene near the intersection of Marais and St. Roch shortly after the incident just after 11 a.m.
Officers who investigated found Rayborn inside of the building where the vehicle crashed. She was pronounced dead on the scene. Initially, the NOPD classified it as a traffic fatality but that was changed to homicide.
A resident of the building told WWL Louisiana what she heard during the crash and what she saw while reviewing surveillance camera footage following the incident.
"It was just really loud and didn't know what happened," she explained, asking to remain anonymous. The resident recounted seeing the moment the tragic incident took place. "Oh, it's something to see. He just drove over her."
The video was turned over to the NOPD and not shared publicly. The resident, who was still upset and shaken, said the video showed a man and a woman in the silver SUV in a long argument, and then the woman got out of the car.
"And then she walks to the sidewalk and he just goes right at her," she said.
The business owner across the street shared security camera footage of the vehicle driving up and stopping. In the far left edge of the video, a person can be seen exiting the passenger door when the vehicle comes to a stop, before driving off.
But the crash was out of camera range.