Louisiana children waiting for school bus discover dead body on side of road

A gruesome discovery: A man's dead body on the side of the road, and it's possible it it had been there for several hours. It happened in the 66-hundred block of 14th street.

The woman who lives near the site here in Marrero tells us her daughter heard a gunshot around 3:15 this morning, but it wasn't until about 6:30 that they noticed a body lying here on the sidewalk.
Delores said, "It's kind of scary because I may be scared not to walk no more."

Delores is like a mother to many in this Marrero neighborhood. She tells us she was taking her morning walk when she saw what she thought was a pile of trash behind her home.

Delores said, "I got to the post and them children catching the bus said, 'Don't go down there.' I said, 'Why?' They say, 'That's a body.' I said, 'A body?!'"

When Jefferson Parish deputies arrived, they found a man who'd been shot once in the head. The coronor's office will have to determine the time he died, but from what neighbors tell deputies ... It's possible his body was lying on the ground for several hours before anyone discovered him.

Delores: "It's terrible. Everybody see but nobody speak of it. They just see and say they don't want to be in it."

Neighbors say the area where the victim was shot has been a hot spot for drug and other illicit activity ever since a hotel there burned down years ago.

Resident Darlene Jenkins explains, "Somebody got to do something about it. This place been messed up since Katrina. Whoever own[s] that place need to do something or we need to get together. We've done walks around here for shootings some body's got to stop it.

Darlene Jenkins is worried about the safety of her mother and other elderly people in the neighborhood. She said, "you could walk through there or just look through there and you'll see them having sex, so it's still a hotel. So what they need to do is put a camera up there and then they'll see what's going on then we ain't got to be calling up what's going on out here."

Investigators haven't identified a suspect or a motive in this shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call Jefferson Parish deputies.