In the pre-dawn hours of August 14, 2018, 31-year-old Kendall Rice was walking to catch a bus to his job in Madison, Tennessee. His routine commute was violently interrupted when two men in a dark-colored sedan pulled up behind him on Alta Loma Road. They robbed him and then shot him with a rifle before speeding away, leaving him to die at the scene. His personal belongings were taken during the attack.
Remembered as a quiet, kind, and deeply spiritual man, Rice was a customer service representative at Vanderbilt University Medical Center's parking and transportation services, where his father and sister also worked. The family had moved to Nashville from Chicago to escape violence.
The investigation into the male's death quickly revealed it was not an isolated incident but part of a larger, violent crime spree that terrorized the area. Just 15 minutes after Rice was killed, another man was shot and critically wounded in an attempted robbery at a nearby apartment complex. A third attempted robbery was also reported in the vicinity, leading police to believe the events were connected. For months, the case remained a primary focus for law enforcement as they worked to bring justice for Kendall Rice and the other victims of the crime wave.
In March 2019, a significant breakthrough came when the Metro Nashville Police announced the arrests of Demontrey Logsdon and Horace Williamson III in connection with Rice's murder. At the time of their indictment for the murder of Kendall Rice, both Logsdon and Williamson were already incarcerated for their roles in another fatal shooting that occurred outside a bar in East Nashville, which resulted in two deaths. The two men were subsequently charged with first-degree murder and especially aggravated robbery for the slaying of Kendall Rice. Another individual, Lacory Lytle, was also indicted on charges related to the use of stolen credit cards belonging to the victims from the East Nashville shooting.
