A man accused of murdering a woman on a Tennessee trail on Monday reportedly stayed at the scene to stake out police.
Paul Park, 29, was arrested at his Brentwood home on Tuesday, a day after he allegedly shot Alyssa Lokits, 34, on the Old Hickory Trailhead in Antioch. A woman who was in the area that day told WTVF that Park approached her about the increased police presence, which did not seem suspicious at the time.
READ: ‘He’s Trying to Rape Me’: Woman Heard Screaming for Help Before She’s Killed on Walking Trail
“As I was walking, a person in a dark gray car… he rolled his window down and leaned out and said hey — kind of with a smile — do you know what happened?” the woman recounted. “I said I think someone may have hurt themselves. Maybe fallen. I’m not sure. And he said ‘Oh, that’s a lot of police.’ I said yeah, I’m just going to go home, and I put my headphones on.”
The woman told WTVF that she saw a clip of police arresting Park and realized he was the man who approached her on the trail moments after Lokits’ slaying.
Park allegedly shot Lokits in the head after she was overheard screaming, “Help! He’s trying to rape me.” Some of the witnesses said they possibly also saw an Asian man on top of Lokits before the shooting.
Lokits was exercising on the trail when Paul Park, 29, allegedly emerged from between two cars and followed Lokits. Though cameras did not capture the deadly altercation, park surveillance footage reportedly showed Park returning to a car with blood on his clothes and scratches on his arms.
Additionally, someone’s dashcam allegedly filmed Park and his car. Metropolitan Nashville police said detective Shannon Forsyth recognized Park as the man in the dashcam footage because she worked on a suicide investigation involving his twin brother in 2021.
Park was apprehended less than 24 hours after Lokits’ death. He is charged with criminal homicide.
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[Feature Photo: Davidson County Jail; Vanderbilt University]
