Pamela Sowell, 40, was fatally shot on the evening of Friday, July 3, 2015, in the 500 block of Summer Place inside the James Cayce public-housing development east of downtown Nashville. Witnesses told police a heated argument involving Pamela and several others in the courtyard escalated; moments later gunfire rang out and officers found her on the sidewalk with at least one gunshot wound. She was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center but did not survive.

Metro Nashville detectives canvassed Cayce Homes and say witness interviews centered on Pamela being in a heated argument with several people just before the shooting. Police later focused on a teenage suspect, 17-year-old Rafael McKinney, and on July 8, 2015, a juvenile court petition and arrest order were issued accusing him of pulling the trigger. McKinney went missing, and investigators kept the warrant active until U.S. Marshals located and arrested him in Midland, Texas, in November 2017; his mother Tanya Howard and stepfather Robert Parham were charged in Texas with hindering apprehension.