On the evening of September 14, 2017, 17-year-old Kennda Javon Watkins, Jr. was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Joseph Avenue in East Nashville. Metro Police responded around 8:30 p.m. and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses reported two Black males, both armed with pistols, fleeing in a large white pickup truck toward Dickerson Pike; one wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and the other a red and black hooded sweatshirt with dark shorts.

Those two individuals were considered suspects and were described as on the run during the initial investigation. Kennda’s father, Kennda Watkins Sr., recalled his son as a young man trying to prove himself and described finding a letter in which his son apologized for past actions and wrote about fitting in with friends. Kennda was the 11th teenage murder victim in Davidson County that year.

If anyone has information about that September 14 evening or the people seen leaving the scene, please share what you know.