Arrest made less than 24 hours after Nashville woman was shot to death while walking on popular trail

Less than 24 hours after a woman was shot to death while exercising on a popular trail in Nashville, detectives have made an arrest in connection to her murder.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) announced that Paul Park was taken into custody for the murder of Alyssa Lokits.

"Less than 24 hours after the fatal shooting of Alyssa Lokits, 34, on the Mill Creek Greenway, incredible investigative work from Homicide & Specialized Investigations detectives led to the arrest just now of Paul Park, 29, of Brentwood," police said in a statement on X.

Lokits was found with a gunshot wound around 5:30 p.m. Monday on the Mill Creek Greenway off Old Hickory Boulevard in Nashville, police said in a previous statement.

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Police said Lokits was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she died.

Investigators determined that Lokits was out for a walk in the area of the greenway path when Park stepped out from between two parked cars and began following her at a "brisk pace." 

Some witnesses claimed to have heard a woman screaming, "Help! He’s trying to rape me," followed by gunfire.

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Witnesses also told police that they saw a man, possibly Asian, on top of Lokits before shots were fired. 

Police said Lotkits and Park then walked out of view of the park's surveillance camera. However, video captured Park returning to his gray car with "scratches on his arms and blood on his clothing."

Park then fled the parking area in a dark-colored 4-door sedan towards Old Hickory Boulevard.

Later in the evening, a major break in the case happened when a witness who was local to the area, provided police with more video footage recorded on his car's dashcam that was parked at the greenway trailhead. 

Police said the dashcam recorded clear images of Park as well as his car, while another witness was able to provide a portion of Park's license plate number.

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Police said another major break in the case happened when MNPD Homicide Detective Shannon Forsyth reviewed the photo of the suspect taken from the witness's dashcam and recognized the suspect as being the identical twin brother of a suicide case that she had worked on in December 2021.

Detectives then set up surveillance at Park’s Brentwood home, followed him after he left, and stopped him in Davidson County after the homicide arrest warrant was issued.

Park is at police headquarters being interviewed and will be booked on the homicide warrant later Tuesday evening, police said. 

According to Vanderbilt University, Lokits graduated from the school in 2017. She worked in the Hamm Lab as a graduate student in neuroscience.