Just hours before midnight on New Year's Eve, Jack Peck made a phone call to his older brother Martin — an avid outdoorsman and former football star known mostly to friends and teammates as “Tiger.”
Jack, 22, was in Dallas visiting family members, while Tiger, a 28-year-old former Princeton graduate who lived in New York, was in New Orleans, preparing to celebrate the New Year.
“We thought it would be another conversation,” he told the BBC. “I would show him what we were eating, and he would show us what he was eating.”
The two brothers would never speak again.
“I hung up the phone, and that was the last time I ever spoke to him,” Jack recalls.
Tiger was among 14 people killed when an attacker plowed into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The attacker, 42-year-old Shams al-Din Jabbar, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police after he attacked him. He drove a pickup truck through the crowdsaccording to the authorities. Although he posted videos online declaring allegiance to ISIS before the attack, FBI officials said they believed he was acting alone.
Although the identities of all the victims have not yet been announced, the picture is slowly beginning to emerge For a group of mostly young peopleMany of them – like Tiger – were Louisiana locals.
Jack – who remembers his brother as his best friend, role model and inspiration – says the close-knit Bech family will never be the same.
Most of the family lives in the town of Lafayette, about 136 miles (218 kilometers) from New Orleans.
“This is something we're going to have to deal with. Every time we wake up, every time we go to sleep, there's going to be something,” he added. “Every holiday, there will be an empty seat at the table.”
But Tiger said his brother “didn't want us to grieve and grieve.” Instead, he encouraged his family to remember him as a “fighter.”
“He wanted us to keep attacking life…He wanted us to go and be there for each other,” he said.
Jack added: “I told my family that instead of seeing him a few times a year, he would be with us every moment.” “When we wake up, when we sleep, when we walk, when we are at work, or doing anything, he will be with us.”
Another victim of the attack, which occurred in the early morning hours of January 1, was Matthew Tenendorio, an audio-visual technician at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
Tenidorio, who just turned 25 in October, had spent the first part of his evening at his brother's house in the town of Slidell, about 35 minutes from New Orleans.
With him were his father and mother, who had just recovered from cancer.
His cousin, Christina Bounds, told the BBC that his family “begged” him not to go to New Orleans, fearing large crowds and potential dangers.
Despite their pleas, he went with two of his friends. When the news broke, his mother was finally able to get one of them.
She added: “They said they were walking in Bourbon, and they saw a body falling,” noting that they now believe it was a body thrown into the air by the attacker’s truck.
Amid the screaming and gunfire, Tenedorio was separated from his friends.
His family says he was shot and believes he was killed during an exchange of gunfire between the attacker and police officers on Bourbon Street.
The BBC has been unable to independently verify this claim.
According to Ms Pounds, the family's tragedy was made all the more painful by the slow and almost non-existent communication with local authorities.
“We couldn't get any information when my aunt (Tendorio's mother, Cathy) showed up at the hospital,” she said. “There was no information from doctors, hospitals or policemen. Nobody.”
“They don't have any information, and that's the part that makes everyone angry. We don't even know what happened,” Pounds added. “Was he taken by EMS? Was he in an ambulance? Did he die instantly?”
She added that these answers “will help people accept” what happened.
“But now it's like a complete shock,” she added. “It doesn't register.”
The family started a GoFundMe page to raise money to cover Tenidorio's funeral expenses — which Ms. Bounds said was made difficult by the large medical bills his mother paid during her cancer diagnosis.
Zach Colgan, another of Tenidorio's cousins, remembers him as “goofy” who was quick to crack a joke, cared deeply about animals and was an enthusiastic storyteller.
“He was caring. He was definitely a people person. He was a happy-go-lucky guy,” Colgan told the BBC. “Sadly, a terrorist attack took his life… No family should have to bury their child, especially over something so meaningless.”
Mr. Colgan, who has experience working with law enforcement in Louisiana, says he believes the officers did the best they could in a very hectic situation with casualties.
“I know it's messy,” he said. “But getting answers is part of the closure process. I know my aunt and uncle haven't been able to get much except 'Yes – Matthew died.'
“It would be good to know more,” Mr Colgan added. “If it was my child, I would want to know.”
Even as his family continues to search for answers, Mr. Colgan says he hopes the government and public will continue to focus on the victims, rather than the law enforcement response or what could have been done to prevent the attack.
“I want every one of them to be remembered,” he said. “They don't deserve this. Nobody deserves this.”
