Murfreesboro Police officers have asked for the public's help in their search for the gunman who shot and killed a grandfather behind a strip mall.
Officials called it a cold-blooded killing with no apparent motive, and the victim's family is seeking justice.
The victim, 58-year-old Fausto Hernandez, was sitting in a field behind a popular pizza parlor talking to his wife on the phone when shots rang out.
"They were on the phone...It just stopped," said Hernandez's daughter Carolina Hernandez.
"I don't understand why anyone would approach an older man and do that? I mean, it's terrible," she said.
Hernandez's daughter said each day after work her father would walk to a nearby Murfreeboro strip mall, sit on a nearby rock in a field out back with a cool drink and call his wife, who was back in Texas..
"At the time witnesses found him, they found him sitting on that rock," said Detective James Abbott.
Hernandez was slumped over, bleeding. It was the evening of Friday, July 15 near a strip mall on east Northfield Boulevard.
"Between 9:15 and 9:25 p-m is when we think this occurred," said Abbott.
Someone shot Hernandez several times at close range. Not a drive-by, but, "We believe it was someone close enough probably standing here with him," said Abbott.
The killer vanished without stealing a thing. No shell casings were found.
Yet, police said at least 20 vehicles drove through the lot during that time period, and there had to be witnesses. Hernandez's daughter hoped so at least, and wanted the man who killed her loving father caught.
"He didn't hurt anybody. He didn't deserve it. Why? Why did he hurt him?" she said.
Detectives said there was little doubt someone saw something. The area was too busy and too well lit. They said they need a tip to help break the case.
Fausto Hernandez leaves behind a wife, two daughters and four grandchildren.
Anyone with information on the shooting was asked to call the Murfreesboro Police Department.
