Gunfire in South Dade left family without a mom, may derail a son’s plan to join Marines
Last week, Natasha Nazien had a festive going-away party at her home for her oldest son, Khalil Nazien. In July, the 18-year-old was to join the United States Marine Corps. Guests were drinking Natasha’s favorite punch and, of course, enjoying her famous Jello shots. The last people left at about 3 a.m.
As other guests mingled, Natasha Nazien’s boyfriend, Lusbu Jean, mostly sat in the background with his brother. He didn’t have much to say and really wasn’t taking part in the celebration.
“He didn’t speak to anyone,” said Natasha’s sister, Marie Nazien. “He just sat with his brother. He was standoffish.”
Four days later the peaceful life that Natasha Nazien struggled to create for herself and her four children was shattered. For a reason still unexplained, not long past midnight Sunday, Jean pulled a gun and shot Nazien and her four children in the woman’s South Miami-Dade apartment.
A few hours later, police caught up with Jean at another part of the housing complex. As they tried to negotiate his surrender, Jean, 41, shot himself.
The spasm of violence at the Verde Gardens housing complex, a typical Homestead area community in the shadow of the Homestead Air Reserve Base, has shattered a family. Natasha Nazien and her 15-year-old son Maximus were killed. Left wounded: Marine recruit Khalil Nazien, his 16-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister.
Khalil Nazien, family members say, had surgery this week to try to repair the shattered bones in the arms that he used to try and protect himself from the gunfire. It’s unclear how the injuries might impact his hopes for a military career.
Police have released little information about the early Monday morning tragedy, a domestic outburst of the gun violence that has scarred Miami-Dade in recent weeks. As of Wednesday afternoon, they hadn’t offered any information or any type of motive. They hadn’t even publicly released the shooter’s name or those of any of the victims.
Marie Nazien said relatives are trying to help the children recover and cope with the horrific events and loss of their mother, who graduated from American Senior High School in Northwest Miami-Dade and had at one point had aspirations of becoming a nurse.
She said the surviving children were on the mend — at least physically. The 11-year-old girl, who police said was in critical condition, is talking and beginning to eat solid foods, she said. And the 16-year-old boy is walking, talking and responsive. Nazien’s relatives have now started a GoFundMe page to support the family as it recovers.
“But, the family is broken,” Marie Nazien said. “This is an unexpected tragedy. And we know Natasha is now with our mother.”
Marie Nazien didn’t want to talk about her sister’s boyfriend, Jean, whom she said she only knew as “B.” She said they’d met a few times before, but he always seemed “creepy.” She said she only learned in the aftermath of the tragedy that Jean got out of prison less than a year ago.
“I don’t know him. And I don’t really care to share anything about him,” she said.
Police officers across Miami-Dade have had run-ins with Jean for at least three decades. State records show his first arrest was at 14, when police say he tried to kill someone. He was found guilty, according to state records, although the exact details of his punishment remain unclear.
Jean spent a significant portion of his adult life in state prison.
In 1993, Jean was sentenced to five years in prison for attempted murder and threatening to use a firearm. That was followed by another 18 months in prison for grand-theft auto. Then, Jean went to trial in November 2002 for carjacking, robbery, armed robbery, aggravated battery and armed burglary with assault. He lost and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Jean walked free from prison in 2010, but wound up back in in 2013 after his arrest for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Jean did another seven years. Finally, Jean last walked out of prison in April 2020 — during the height of the pandemic.
He also had a history of strife with women. In 2001, state records show a judge issued a permanent restraining order against Jean, to keep him away from a woman in a domestic-violence case. Two other women had also taken him to court to enforce child support payments.
Natasha Nazien and her son were killed in a housing complex owned and operated by the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. Marie Nazien said her sister had some issues, but had managed to turn her life around just as Jean ended it. She said the pandemic year had been especially tough on her sister and her family, but that Natasha Nazien was picking up odd jobs and “trying to pick herself up.”
Marie Nazien said she believed her sister met Jean in Verde Gardens while he was visiting his sister, who also lives there. The Miami Herald could not confirm that.
Some of the horror of that night, which lasted several hours, was captured on video. WSVN Channel 7 showed video of an injured victim, who appears to be the 16-year-old boy, lying on the front porch of a home near where the shooting happened, as a neighbor is outside and police approach. A law enforcement source said the injured 18-year-old ran down the street and knocked on a neighbor’s door asking for help.
Police said a neighbor called police. A source familiar with the incident said police caught up with Jean near a farmer’s market next to the property. And that as they tried to talk Jean into surrendering, he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. A spokesman at the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed his death was “suicide, a gunshot wound to the head.”
Marie Nazien said the night of the party her sister’s entire home was decorated and all of her son’s friends were there. People cooked and brought their favorite dishes.
“She was in the process of sending her oldest son to the Marines. It was a graduation party,” Marie Nazien said. “Now he has to recover and see what the Marines say or plan for him.”
