The alleged terrorist behind the New Year’s killing spree in New Orleans was a born-and-bred Texan, an Army veteran, and father of three who had climbed the corporate ladder. But Shamsud-Din Jabbar ’s burnished professional résumé belied a path that had gone off course. In recent years, the Houston-area resident’s life appeared to take a grim turn, with a contentious divorce and his finances in a deep hole, according to a desperate email he sent to his then-wife’s lawyer in 2022.
“Time is of the essence. I can not afford the house payment. It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce,” he wrote, worried about the tens of thousands in credit-card and other debt he had racked up as his real-estate business was losing money.
Law-enforcement officials have identified Jabbar, 42, as the man who rammed a rented Ford F-150 truck into a partying crowd in the heart of the French Quarter early Wednesday, leaving at least 15 dead , dozens injured and a reawakened national fear of terrorism on American soil. Jabbar died in a shootout with police, according to authorities, who said a black-and-white flag of the radical group Islamic State was found on the pickup. Explosive devices were found in the truck and neighborhood.
A mugshot of Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas identified by police as the suspect in a truck attack that killed several people during New Year’s celebrations in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., is seen in this handout obtained by Reuters on January 1, 2025. FBI/Handout via REUTERS
On his internal profile page at Deloitte, where he worked from 2021 to at least the past fall as a “senior solutions specialist,” Jabbar posted about his interests including hunting and prayer. He quoted an English translation of the Quran, from a section known as Al-Insan, or “The Man,” which discusses how faithful Muslims will be rewarded by God.
“Indeed, the righteous will drink from a cup whose mixture is of Kafur, A spring of which the servants of Allah will drink,” according to a copy of his profile viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “They will make it gush forth in force. They fulfill vows and fear a Day whose evil will be widespread.”
He set his out-of-office message on Dec. 20 and planned to return after Jan. 1: “Please expect a delay in response during this time.” Now his account is deactivated.
“We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm. The named individual served in a staff-level role since being hired in 2021,” according to a Deloitte statement. “Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation.”
On paper, Jabbar hit significant milestones: military service—including war deployment—a college degree from a state university and ascendance at Accenture , Ernst & Young and finally Deloitte. In addition to this work, he tried to make it in the real-estate business.
In a promotional video for his real-estate endeavor, Jabbar appeared with a groomed beard and wearing a sports jacket. He asked viewers in a polite, slight Texas lilt to contract his services for selling or leasing properties. He stressed his work ethic as he sat at a desk in front of a motivational poster urging discipline as a way to success.
He emphasized his Texas roots and a decade in the U.S. Army, serving as a human-resources and information-technology specialist. That experience, he said, was “where I learned the meaning of great service and what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously, dotting i’s and crossing t’s to make sure that things go off without a hitch.”
Marilyn Bradford, a former neighbor of Jabbar’s at an apartment complex in the northern part of Houston, described him as “very to himself” and said, “He wasn’t a sociable person at all.” Still, the 70-year-old retiree said Jabbar was an attentive neighbor who regularly asked her if she needed anything and gave her his vacuum cleaner, washer and dryer when he moved out around 2022.
“Every morning when he sees me he says, ‘How are you doing Miss Marilyn?’” said Bradford. “I can’t understand what he was going through.”
“He was good to his children. I never heard him get out of line with anybody,” she added.
Jabbar was born in 1982 and raised in Beaumont, Texas, a city about an hour east of Houston and not far from the Louisiana border. Records show his family has longstanding ties in East Texas and other parts of the South.
As a young man, he had run-ins with the law, according to court records. He was sentenced to nine months of probation after pleading guilty to a 2002 charge of petty theft in Katy, Texas. Three years later he was arrested for driving with a suspended license in Beaumont. He got six months of probation after pleading no contest.
Jabbar also started a family and entered the military. He married Nakedra Charrlle Jabbar, and the couple had two daughters. He initially tried to join the Navy in 2004, according to records, but left after a month. Two years later, he joined the Army, serving at bases in Alaska and North Carolina.
Jabbar had an unremarkable but solid military career, according to Army records. He deployed to Afghanistan in February 2009, serving for 11 months. Based on the limited information the military released about his record, it doesn’t appear he was in combat. In 2013, he was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant.
He faced disciplinary action twice for behavior tied to driving under the influence, a Defense Department official said, before leaving the Army as an active duty soldier in 2015.
He joined the reserves, where he served about five years, according to Defense Department officials. He was honorably discharged.
He studied computer-information systems at Georgia State University while working as a senior cloud analyst at Accenture, according to a résumé he posted online. It appears he worked in real estate and briefly incorporated a business of his own before moving back to Texas in 2018. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as a cloud-consulting manager for Ernst & Young.
He then joined Deloitte as a senior consultant, and a pay stub he submitted in a court filing showed he was paid the equivalent of nearly $125,000 a year. His internal biography, detailing his training, education and job history, describes his desire to succeed in a corporate setting. “I have proven that I can build and leverage relationships and knowledge sources to research and execute solutions that mutually benefit all concerned parties,” he wrote.
Clients while at Deloitte included the state of Oregon and the National Institutes of Health. His last client listed was Johnson & Johnson for a project that ended in October.
Behind his professional advancement, Jabbar had a rocky family life. When he separated from his wife in 2012, she won custody of their two children, while Jabbar was ordered to pay child support and told to provide medical insurance for them.
In 2020, he filed for divorce from his second wife, Shaneen Jabbar, after three years, stating that the marriage was “insupportable due to discord or conflict of personalities,” according to court records.
Days later, Shaneen Jabbar was granted a restraining order, forbidding Shamsud-Din Jabbar from sending threatening or obscene messages to her or causing “bodily injury” to her or their child. The order stated that he couldn’t make late-night prank calls, cancel her credit cards and other abusive acts. Shaneen Jabbar was ordered to refrain from the same things. She couldn’t be reached for comment.
The following month, the couple moved jointly to dismiss the divorce petition. But in 2021, Shamsud-Din Jabbar again filed for divorce, and the court granted dissolution the following year. In a statement filed with the court, Jabbar portrayed himself as broke, with net income of around $7,500 and monthly expenses totaling about $8,960.
Jabbar’s recent address in the Houston area shared the same street with nearly a dozen properties owned by people with names common in Islamic cultures, according to Harris County, Texas, land records. Jabbar’s residence and those other properties appeared to be behind a common wrought-iron gate at the beginning of the street, Google Street View imagery shows. Houston is home to a large Muslim population.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office had secured a perimeter around the area Wednesday. Dozens of people could be seen around the blockaded area, including many who walked over from nearby neighborhoods to watch law-enforcement officials come and go, and to see the TV live shots.
Until 2023, Jabbar was a licensed real-estate sales agent in the state, according to the Texas Real Estate Commission. That license expired in February of that year.
In his real-estate promotional video, Jabbar said he was working for a property-management firm, Blue Meadow Properties. His bio on the company’s website said that in the Army he ran a service desk “responsible for support services to thousands of soldiers.”
For his service in Afghanistan, Jabbar was awarded the Global War on Terrorism medal, which was created to recognize service members who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight against terrorists post-9/11. On Wednesday, the FBI called Jabbar a terrorist.
Write to Jack Gillum at jack.gillum@wsj.com , Cameron McWhirter at Cameron.McWhirter@wsj.com and Scott Calvert at scott.calvert@wsj.com
