New Video Could Help Find Killer In Homeless Homicide

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Police have surveillance video of Edward Matthews that may help them solve the homicide case. Investigators believe he may have been shot while he was sleeping Tuesday morning.

The family hopes the video will stir someone's memory, especially someone who was in Downtown Nashville. His pants were rolled up, and he was wearing baseball socks with vertical stripes. Matthews also had a distinctive walk.

The video was captured just before 1 a.m. Tuesday outside the Nashville Rescue Mission. Four hours later, Matthews was dead.

"Please let them know if you've seen him. We just want peace. We just want peace," said victim's sister Cleo Burrows.

Burrows said it's difficult to understand why someone would have wanted to kill her brother.

"It's been hard. It's been very hard. You never know until you go through this," said Burrows.

Matthews was 46-years-old when police found him on a park bench at 5th and Church. He'd been shot once in the head.

"There are no apparent signs of robbery, so again it's just leaves the motive wide open at this point," said Brian Johnson, Metro Nashville Police Department.

There was an autopsy, but police said it did not help. Although they said some of the evidence indicates Matthews may have been shot while he slept.

"The major challenge in this is - no witnesses," said Johnson.

They're trying to narrow down the time frame when he was killed. Investigators said it was some time between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Tuesday.

Burrows said her brother was homeless for about 20 years. When he was younger he earned a degree at TSU, but something went wrong.

"Met up with the wrong people, got hooked on drugs, wanted to be homeless. It's what he wanted to do," said Burrows.

The surveillance video came from one of the Rescue Mission's 52 cameras. A security guard said he tried to get Matthews to come in from the cold that night, but he refused.

Downtown surveillance cameras have helped police in the past. Three years ago police solved the murder of Tara Cole.

She was the homeless woman who was thrown into the Cumberland River and drowned. A surveillance camera captured the killers walking down the street.