‘This is horrific’: Friends mourn woman killed while exercising on Nashville greenway

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A woman who was killed while exercising on a greenway in the Antioch community of Nashville is remembered by friends as a wonderful person.

News 2 spoke to the childhood friend of the victim , Alyssa Lokits.

“Alyssa was a wonderful person and this is horrific,” longtime friend of Lokits, Daniel Frazier, told News 2.

Frazier showed News 2 an image of their travels together through Europe.

“There were a lot of people in her life that loved and admired her and this is just a horrible tragedy,” Frazier said.

Metro police said 29-year-old Paul Park was taken into custody less than 24 hours after the incident. Investigators said that Lokits was walking along the Mill Creek Greenway on Monday evening when Park followed her and attacked her.

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake provided more details about the case and the unique way they identified the suspect. Drake said at Tuesday’s press conference that a preliminary investigation suggested Lokits and Park didn’t know each other.

“In fact, someone heard her yell, ‘Help, he’s trying to rape me,’ before gunfire was heard,” Drake added.

A Tesla driver provided police with dash cam footage of Park before and after the crime. Drake added an officer recognized Park because of a 2021 case involving his twin brother.

“Our TITANS team — undercover detectives — set up on Park’s house in Brentwood and followed him and took him into custody shortly after warrants were issued for his arrest at 3 p.m.,” Drake said.

Frazier said that it’s been hard to come to terms with losing Lokits, but knowing Park is in custody brought him some peace.

“I kept expecting someone to say this hadn’t happened and all this isn’t real,” Frazier said. “I’m still in disbelief, for the most part, that this could happen — something that appears so random and shocking.”

According to Drake, before this homicide charge, Park didn’t have a violent criminal history in Davidson County.

“I was worried this could be someone that could do this over and over, so I’m so thankful that our people got on this,” Drake said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell praised detectives’ work on the arrest, adding that he mourns the passing of Lokits as well.

“Their quick and thorough work to apprehend dangerous criminals shows: when you commit a serious crime in our city, we’re going to use every resource available to bring justice to the victims,” O’Connell said in a follow-up post to X, formerly Twitter.

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