Brian Murray.Photo: Facebook
A well-known Louisiana trumpet player was fatally shot in his home trying to protect his daughter and grandson.
Edmond Ramee Sr. was booked Monday on a count of second-degree murder the death of 60-year-old Brian Murray.
The trumpet player brought them to his home in the Little Woods section of New Orleans East.
Still carrying his son, he allegedly returned to the house with a gun and began shooting, hitting Murray, the affidavit states.
An unnamed witness hid in the closet and later escaped out a window and called 911.
Ramee Sr. fled the area after the shooting but turned himself in Monday. He has yet to be charged or enter a plea.
Edmond Ramee Sr.Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office
News of Murray’s death has devastated the New Orleans music community. Murray was a popular and skillful trumpeter who played in clubs around New Orleans. He also taught at Jefferson Parish Public Schools and Ellis Marsalis School of Music, according to his website.
Murray’s website states he began playing the trump at the age of 14. He later attended Xavier University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in music performance and then a master’s degree in jazz studies at the University of New Orleans.
He previously recorded and performed with the likes of Aaron Neville, BB King and the O’Jays.
Dr. Daryl Dickerson, a friend of Murray’s and colleague at Ellis Marsalis School of Music, tells PEOPLE that Murray was not only an outstanding musician but a great educator.
“He was a great guy and great with kids,” he says. “He could relate with kids.”
Dickerson recalled a day when Murray brought a group of students to a recording studio. “I can remember the smiles on those kids faces,” he says. “It was that ‘wow’ moment in the kids' life he was giving them.”
Dickerson says Murray also, through his Jerome Murray Instrumental Music Foundation, found instruments for kids in need. “He would be the guy who would get instruments from people and call me and say, do you need a trumpet, or a flute,” he says. “We would turn around and give it to a student. It was a pipe line of keeping music going in New Orleans.”
“He was a kind-hearted person and he would do whatever you asked him to do,” adds Dickerson. “That is what hurts the most. Some kids won’t get to experience what he was offering. He was the kind of person, his knowledge, his wisdom, his experience, he would give it all to you so you would understand what is going on.”
“It is going to be a great loss to his students,” he says. “This is something you can’t replicate what he brought to the table and the type of person he was.”
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Dickerson says he is still trying to process his friend’s death.
“I am still trying to figure out why this guy,” he says. “The innocent always seem to get hurt the most. He was not a confrontational type of person. I think America has to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves about the guns we have on the streets and how we are getting younger and younger people using these guns and ruining people’s lives. We lost a bright educator. To lose someone like this who gave so much. It hurts. We just lost one of the captains of the ship.”
source: people.com
