On the morning of December 2, 2020, Seth Joseph Stephens, a 28-year-old White man, was working at the New King Mao restaurant in Clarksville, Tennessee, when a man entered the business, brandished a weapon and demanded money. When Stephens did not comply with the robber’s demands, he was shot multiple times. Emergency crews took him from 210 Needmore Road to a local hospital, where he later died.

Clarksville Police Department Special Operations Homicide Unit led the investigation. Detectives, with assistance from the Joliet Police Department in Illinois, identified Jaelyn Deon Gant as the suspect; he was already in custody in Illinois on unrelated charges when identified. In September 2021 a Montgomery County grand jury returned indictments alleging first-degree murder and related charges against Gant, and he was extradited to Tennessee to face those counts.

This case ended the life of a young man at his workplace; if anyone has information about that morning at New King Mao or knew Seth, please come forward.