Investigators reveal what they found inside Bourbon St. Terrorist’s rental

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Returning St. Roch residents are processing what investigators found inside the Bourbon Street terrorist’s rental.

Neighbors who watched their neighborhood transform into a crime scene expressed concerns as they coped.

Those evacuees who returned home around 8 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 2) remain shocked after learning Shamsud-Din Jabbar was staying right by them.

“We’re all reeling with the ‘Bourbon Street, look how close to home it is.’ This is a little too close to home,” Eliot Barron said.

The FBI confirmed Friday (Jan. 3), authorities uncovered supplies that could be used to make bombs, along with a suspected handmade rifle silencer.

“Started off the New Year with a call from the FBI. It was pretty alarming,” Martha Pearson said.

TERROR ATTACK

Residents said the home has been an Airbnb for a couple of years. They recalled smelling smoke.

The New Orleans Fire Department arrived at the Mandeville Street Airbnb a little after 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

The FBI said ATF agents later determined Jabbar set a small fire in the hallway and strategically placed accelerants throughout the rental to try and destroy the home, concealing his crime.

Agents said the home was smoldering when firefighters arrived, allowing them to recover the evidence.

“I just never considered us to be a target. Obviously, this individual was trying to make us an example,” a neighbor said.

Sources said Jabbar also planted two bombs the French Quarter.

“These huge public gatherings I’ll definitely think a lot differently now about how safe they are, what the intentions of people out of our control could be.”

Fox 8 was told authorities found a transmitter to set off the remote bombs, active and working, in the cab of the truck he used during the attack.

Jabbar’s Airbnb now bears a boarded-up front door and windows, discarded crime tape in the bushes, and a glove still left on the front porch. It’s one investigators would use to preserve evidence. There’s shattered glass along the side of the St. Roch rental and a faint lingering smell of smoke.

“The proximity was disturbing,” one woman told Fox 8.

“There’s one part disbelief and then one part lingering fear. And we haven’t gotten to the anger and dismay yet,” Barron said.

“It was very hard to believe. It’s a very quiet neighborhood. We didn’t know what was going on. Had no way to process this information,” Brandon Nicholas said.

“Very shocking and surreal. Eight houses down from us there was explosives being made.”

There’s a lot of construction in the area.

“It’s very hard to tell like a regular on the block or which nice new truck doesn’t belong. It was kind of a clever disguise honestly, you know? A white pickup truck with Texas plates,” Barron said.

Neighbors said they were upset, disoriented, and overwhelmed, describing the ambiguity and abruptness of their evacuation as SWAT, bomb-sniffing dogs, and FBI teams took over.

Investigators requested any home surveillance footage.

Many told Fox 8 they were displaced with no timeline, some without clothes, essential medications and the means to book a hotel room, all while fielding calls and texts from frantic family and friends.

Residents said they’re sad for the city.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.

Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel.

Copyright 2025 WVUE. All rights reserved.