Nola.com: Purple casket owned by slain LSU superfan is transformed into a portable bar

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Four years ago, former LSU football player “Big Bob” Wynne bought a shiny purple coffin at an estate sale. The previous owner of the coffin, “Big Lee” Martin, who was known across New Orleans for his fanatical devotion to the Tigers, had been shot to death a few weeks earlier.

Martin's remains were laid out in the purple coffin during his funeral before being cremated.

Now, Wynne has converted Martin’s purple coffin into an elaborate portable bar, destined to be used during football game tailgating parties.

“People might say, ‘This is mocking death,’” Wynne said, but he sees it as a winking tribute from one LSU superfan to another.

“He would have loved it,” Wynne said.

At 6-foot-4 and 290 pounds, Wynne lives up to the nickname “Big Bob.” He played offensive guard for the Tigers from 1998 to 2000, during the transition from coach Gerry DiNardo to the Nick Saban years.

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Anyone who ever took the Bonnabel Boulevard exit off Interstate 10 knew something about “Big Lee” Martin. He was a tow-truck company owner who’d converted his Metairie home into a museum of LSU football memorabilia: helmets, signed balls, posters, bobble heads, refrigerator magnets, and anything else remotely LSU football-related.

His pickup was tricked out LSU-style, as was his mailbox, his planters, banners, concrete lions and his coffin.

Martin got the purple casket “cheap, cheap, cheap,” from someone he met at a hardware store, who apparently had heard of his unquenchable purple and gold collecting habit. Martin displayed the macabre acquisition in his kitchen, watched over by plush Mike the Tiger dolls.

“I bought it a few years ago,” he said of the coffin in a 2017 YouTube tour of his carefully curated abode, “and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. So, I just took my kitchen table out. And I’m a single man, so I can do whatever I want to with my house.”

Lee once told a NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reporter that he hoped for a big funeral that would be reported in the press. His body, he said, would recline in his LSU-themed casket, before being cremated.

Big Lee's little sister April Martin McElroy heard that often. "Every time I would visit, he'd tell me to lay him out in it, then sell it," she confirmed.

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Wilson said that when it was finished, Big Bob became pensive, asking if maybe “it was all a bit too much.” Wilson assured him it was not.

In late September, Wynne staged a debut party for the coffin bar at his law office. Guests loved it.

“Everyone was dying to hear the story,” Wilson said.

“You really die twice,” said Wilson, philosophically, “when you die and when people stop talking about you." Based on what she’d learned about Big Lee, she said, “he would have loved to have been the center of attention at Bob Wynne’s party for all eternity.”

Though Big Lee’s sister hasn’t seen the converted coffin in all its satirical details, in theory she believes Big Lee would approve.

“I miss my big brother and all his crazy antics,” she wrote in an email. “Selling the coffin was his wish and he wanted it to be used for something fun. Lee would be thrilled to know that it will be used as a tailgating bar, serving up more than just spirits.”

“As everyone knew,” she continued, “Lee was the biggest LSU fan, and it would make him proud that it is being used exactly where it should be, so everyone can have a drink on Big Lee.”

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