Alyssa Lokits Phd graduate in neuroscience shot dead by Paul Park of Brentwood, Nashville as IT worker exercised along Mill Creek Greenway in abducted sexual assault. How police were able to identify and eventually arrest predator.
A woman was fatally shot by a stranger while exercising on a popular Nashville trail — with witnesses hearing her scream, ‘Help! He’s trying to rape me,’ as the unknown man had attempted to abduct his victim, police said.
Alyssa Lokits, 34, an ‘immensely talented’ IT worker and Vanderbilt University grad was found with a gunshot wound to the head in an overgrown part of the Mill Creek Greenway around 5:30 p.m. Monday.
Lokits had been walking on the popular trail when a stranger stepped out from between two parked cars and started to quickly follow her at a ‘brisk pace’, MNPD said in a press release.
Sexual predator seen smirking following arrest
On Tuesday, police arrested 29-year-old Paul Park in connection with Lokits’ death, 24 hours later the Metro Nashville Police Department announced on social media.
Released images showed him smirking in handcuffs while wearing sunglasses.
MNPD Chief John Drake told reporters that police believe Lokits was exercising on the trail when she was allegedly abducted according to captured dashcam footage from a nearby parked vehicle.
The two soon left the view of the camera. After an unspecified amount of time, witnesses heard a woman scream: ‘Help! He’s trying to rape me.’ They then heard gunfire.
A short time later, dashcam captured the man with blood on his clothes and scratches on his arms, returning to his vehicle, a BMW sedan, before leaving the scene. A witness had partially recalled the fleeing man’s license plate number, police said.
Clues that led to wanted man’s arrest
Drake said that authorities believe Park allegedly abducted Lokits and took her into an overgrown area and attempted to sexually assault her. Park was allegedly spotted in the ‘overgrown area’ where Lokits’ body would later be found.
On Monday evening, police received dashcam footage from a local resident whose vehicle was parked at the Greenway trailhead. Video showed a clear image of Park’s parked BMW.
Leading up to his arrest, detectives deployed a number of clues in identifying the wanted man, including one detective recognizing the suspect as the identical twin of someone involved in a case three years ago.
Park was arrested driving a short distance from his nearby Brentwood, Tennessee home.
Lokits’ heartbroken family called on her killer to be punished ‘to the fullest extent of the law.’
‘Dr. Alyssa Lokits, Ph.D. was a force to be reckoned with—driven, successful, smart, and immensely talented,’ her family said in a statement released to WSMV.
Lokits graduated in 2017 from Vanderbilt University after studying neuroscience.
At the time of her death, Lokits worked in IT and lived a short distance from the Greenway.
Victim remembered
‘There were a lot of people in her life that loved and admired her and this is just a horrible tragedy,’ her friend Daniel Frazie told WKRN.
‘She was just incredibly kind to me and the neighbors adored her,’ her neighbor Guy Gilchrist told FOX 17.
Park was charged with murder and expected to appear in court on Thursday, CBS News reported.
No known motive for the attack and murder was immediately known.