NEW ORLEANS — Kim Boutte, the Big Queen of the Spirit of Fi Yi Yi, was shot to death when a stray bullet hit her Tuesday night, members of her tribe said.
Boutte, 55, and a 48-year-old man were both hit as a crowd left a repast at an event hall in the 7300 block of Read Boulevard about 5:30 p.m.
That repast was being held for 22-year-old Dellmarcus Kirton, killed in a spray of bullets on Interstate 10.
The venue for his repast was moved more than once before settling on a location, according to one person familiar with the planning.
Kirton was out on bond after police booked him in the slaying of Devin Espadron, an entrepreneur. He was not charged in the death.
Kirton was driving on I-10 late July 31 when he was fired upon. Kirton and two others and ditched their car, police said. Kirton reached a nearby hospital on his own but soon died.
After his March 16 arrest, Kirton denied killing Espadron or firing at Espadron’s business partner on the night of Nov. 19 in the 6300 block of Perrier Street, just outside Audubon Park. He even took a lie-detector test which his attorney said supported his claims of innocence in the case.
But police said a witness identified Kirton as one of two men who allegedly shot Espadron to death and then allegedly tried to kill the business partner, and they arrested him a couple of weeks before he bonded out.
Kirton’s death was among a flurry of homicides in the city, and the precautions taken over his repast may have proven fruitless.
After attendees spilled out from the event hall, someone with a rifle aimed gunfire near the entrance of a Family Dollar a few storefronts down.
“It was retaliation on top of retaliation,” said one person familiar with the situation, who said that the gunman in the car was aiming wildly, “at anyone wearing a memorial T-shirt.”
People who were leaving the repast ran for their lives.
Boutte died at a hospital after the shooting. The other man was listed in stable condition on Tuesday evening.
“The queen ain’t never fooled with nobody for them to just kill her. She wasn’t that kind of person,” said Jack Robertson, a drummer and master designer with Boutte’s Spirit of the Fi Yi Yi tribe. “This was just a tragic accident.”
"(She was just) in the wrong place at the wrong time at a funeral paying her respects,” said Fi Yi Yi spyboy Albert Polite.
A source familiar with the repast said people from the gathering chased a black Honda that carried the gunman to a Walmart, where it overturned.
A law enforcement source confirmed police secured permission to search a car in the parking lot of that store but stopped short of saying whether the vehicle had overturned.
The car was one of several leads that detectives investigating Boutte’s murder were pursuing, that source said.
The killing of Boutte, who began masking as her tribe’s queen from the age of about 5, happened during what has been a particularly deadly summer in the city. Mayor LaToya Cantrell was among many to publicly lament the slaying, issuing a tweet calling Bouttle “a singular voice” and “a beloved icon.”
