Tommy Lee Kelley, a 59-year-old man from Nashville, Tennessee, had just come home on the evening of Sunday, December 30, 2018, when his ordinary routine turned suddenly violent. Around 6 p.m., he arrived at his residence at 1633 25th Avenue North in North Nashville, parked his pickup truck, and began walking toward his house. It was a quiet Sunday night at the end of the year, and there was nothing to suggest that he was in danger as he stepped out of his vehicle in his own backyard.
What happened next was swift and deadly. According to investigators and witness accounts, a gunman emerged from behind a shed on the property and opened fire just as Kelley was getting out of his truck. The ambush gave him no warning and no chance to defend himself. Neighbors and officers later found him lying on the ground near his pickup, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Emergency responders rushed him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, but despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead there from his injuries.
The backyard of his home became a crime scene as Metro Nashville police worked into the night, marking shell casings and documenting the area around the truck and shed where the attacker had appeared. Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing witnesses and asking anyone who might have seen a suspicious person near 25th Avenue North around that time to come forward. The early news reports emphasized how violent and sudden the shooting had been, and how it appeared that Kelley had been specifically targeted as he returned home. Police publicly appealed for tips, directing callers to the department’s Crime Stoppers line, and later the case was taken up by the Nashville Cold Case Homicide Unit, which continued to urge anyone with information to contact them or Crime Stoppers anonymously.
Even as the investigation moved from the initial homicide team to cold case detectives, no clear answers emerged. The description of the shooter released to the public was minimal, and authorities did not announce any suspect by name. Years after the killing, Nashville’s official cold case listing for Kelley still describes the same brief, stark sequence of events: his arrival home, the assailant stepping out from behind the shed, the burst of gunfire, and his death from multiple gunshot wounds. The continued presence of his case on the city’s cold case website, combined with the absence of any follow-up reports of an arrest or charges, indicates that no one has been publicly identified or arrested for his murder and that the case remains unsolved.
While detectives searched for leads, Kelley's loved ones were left to mourn. His obituary in the local newspaper and funeral notices from Smith Funeral Directors recorded his age, the date of his death, and the arrangements made in early January 2019: a public viewing on January 7, followed by visitation and a funeral service on January 8 at New Metropolitan CMBC in Nashville, and interment at Greenwood West. Family and friends gathered there to say goodbye, even as the questions surrounding his final moments remained painfully open. Memorial pages online, including gun-violence remembrance sites, mark his name and age, fixing December 30, 2018, as the day his life was cut short by gunfire in his own yard. Yet, despite these public remembrances and repeated appeals from law enforcement, the person who ambushed him that Sunday evening has not been brought to justice, and his killing remains an open wound in both his family’s story and the city’s unresolved homicides.
