Victim in Bayou St. John killing was carpenter, public artist: 'He was always about doing good'

An armed man began knocking on doors near Bayou St. John not long before the gunfire erupted Saturday morning, according to neighbors.

A few minutes before 8 a.m., he stopped at a house on Dumaine Street and proceeded to shoot the man who lived there.

Eliot Brown was a beloved 47-year-old artist and carpenter whose work graces the banks of the bayou, in whimsical renderings of yellow alligator warning signs.

Brown's wife called 911, saying her husband told her "it was their neighbor's kid" who shot him, according to police.

Brown succumbed at a hospital. The suspected shooter, 26-year-old Enrique Garcia, ran around the corner to his home on Hagan Street, grabbed a bicycle and sped off, police allege.

A cousin told police that he'd confronted Garcia about stealing a handgun from his ho