James B. Cox III, 41, was killed in Nashville’s Edgehill neighborhood on August 16, 2024. Officers found Cox on Deford Bailey Avenue around 12:30 a.m. with multiple gunshot wounds; he was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and later died of his injuries.

Surveillance video from the scene shows 34-year-old Ronald Lamont Russell Jr. shooting Cox multiple times, continuing after Cox had fallen. Russell was brought to Vanderbilt by his mother soon after with a minor head injury; while there he was overheard referring to his role in a shootout, which led investigators to question him. Russell told detectives he first tried to stab Cox outside the sister’s apartment, that a struggle followed and one of Cox’s two firearms became loose, and that he grabbed a gun and shot Cox several times. Police recovered a discarded 9mm pistol in a nearby field.

Russell’s mother told detectives he has schizophrenia; Russell said he believed, delusionally, that Cox caused his sister’s leg amputation, though the sister’s leg was lost to medical complications. Russell has a history of mental health issues and prior arrests and was to be charged with murder after a hospital evaluation. Anyone with information about Cox or the incident is asked to share what they know.