Brandon Taylor, a quiet lover of rap and a cook from Terrytown who'd been engaged to be married, has been identified as one of the 14 people killed in the Bourbon Street attack early Wednesday morning.
Taylor, 43, was out with his fiancée, Heather Genusa, 38, and standing near a boom lift parked in the 300 block of Bourbon when the pickup truck crashed into him, according to Genusa.
“No one should ever have to die like that. He didn’t deserve it,” she said.
Brandon Taylor, left, and Heather Genusa.
Taylor's mother, 75-year-old Mary Guerrera, called her son a Christian man who loved music.
"It's been very difficult," she said Friday. "I'm pretty devastated, and I'm just trying to get through this."
Speeding truck
Taylor and Genusa were hanging out inside a French Quarter club on Bourbon just before 3:15 a.m. when he darted out into the street.
Genusa followed behind and saw him standing near an orange lift, she said. That's when she also spotted a speeding white truck barreling towards them. Genusa dodged out of the way.
“The truck ran into the crane, and I’m pretty sure Brandon was right before the crane. He was the very last victim to be hit,” Genusa wept. “When I got up and ran around the truck, his body was laying over the front, his legs were broken.”
Genusa moved Taylor to the ground and began rescue breathing because, she said, he only seemed to be able to breathe out and not in.
They were nearby when the truck’s driver died in a hail of bullets fired after authorities say the driver shot and wounded two New Orleans police officers.
The couple waited for about 10 minutes — what seemed an eternity — before medical personnel reached them.
“I prayed over (Brandon), and I told him to never give up, to keep fighting the entire time," she said.
After Taylor was taken in an ambulance, Genusa said she never saw him again.
"He was my entire life. Brandon was my everything, and I lost it all," she said.
Fun-loving friend
Taylor was born and raised in Marrero, Guerrera said. He was the youngest of her two sons. He graduated from John Ehret High School.
From early on, Taylor had a deep love for music, concerts and rapping, best friend, O'Kieth Gibson, 43, said. Taylor went by the nickname "Lazy" when rapping, according to Genusa.
Though mostly quiet around strangers, Taylor opened up with friends and family.
Brandon Taylor
"He was a fun-loving person, full of energy," Gibson said. "He was a high-spirited person."
Taylor worked as a cook at Dimartino's restaurant in Terrytown, his mother said. After her eldest son, Eric Engelhardt, 48, died of a heart attack last year, she's now lost both children.
“Once I put him to rest, I will have time to cry and cry until I cry it all out,” she said.
