In the early hours of a December morning in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the life of 61-year-old Russell Wayne Paris Sr. was tragically cut short. On November 30, 2020, he was shot outside his home in the 1700 block of South Kelly Street. Emergency services responded to a call about a person shot at approximately 2:40 a.m. and transported Paris to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries, where he later succumbed to his wounds.
A Black male, his death was ruled a homicide and became part of a grim day for the city, which saw another fatal shooting later that evening.
For years, the case of the double homicide that day remained under investigation, leaving a community searching for answers. A significant breakthrough came in the summer of 2025. On July 29, the Chattanooga Police Department, in collaboration with the Smoky Mountain Fugitive Task Force, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Marshals Service, arrested 30-year-old Khavell Mailik Williams. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the death of Paris and the fatal shooting of a 66-year-old woman in her home on South Willow Street on the same day.
The investigation continued to unfold, and in October 2025, three more suspects were taken into custody in connection with the double homicide. Willie Lee Wooten Jr. and Anthony Jermaine George were arrested, and Cornelius Lebron Beasley was also booked in connection to the nearly five-year-old case. The persistent efforts of homicide investigators and the collaboration of multiple law enforcement agencies were credited with the arrests.
All four suspects, Khavell Mailik Williams, Willie Lee Wooten Jr., Anthony Jermaine George, and Cornelius Lebron Beasley, are currently in custody at the Hamilton County Jail and Detention Center. They are all awaiting further legal proceedings for their alleged roles in the violent events that transpired on that December day, which resulted in the deaths of two of Chattanooga's long-time residents. The cases against them are pending in the Hamilton County courts.
