Tearful father of Tennessee nurse shot dead lunges at alleged killers in court

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The father of a Tennessee nurse who was shot dead while driving to work in 2020 made a dramatic lunge at his daughter’s alleged killers in a Nashville courtroom before getting escorted from the building.

Video footage from the courtroom on Tuesday shows the two men accused of killing the 26-year-old nurse, Devaunte Lewis Hill and James Edward Cowan, being ushered into their seats while handcuffed in a pair of matching orange jumpsuits.

Seconds later, the victim’s father, Rick Kaufman, is seen rushing towards the plexiglass partition that separates the accused killers from the rest of the court. He then got bodychecked by a deputy and dragged out of the room.

The father was in attendance for the first day of the motions hearing, where the two men – Hill and Cowan – are facing charges of criminal homicide. Hill has been charged with assault with bodily injury, WKRN-TV reported.

The charges in the murder case stem from an incident that occurred on 3 December 2020, during which the 26-year-old nurse, who had moved to Nashville from Pennsylvania for work, was allegedly shot and killed by the pair of suspects while she was driving along Interstate 40.

Kaufman was on her way to work at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital and never arrived for her shift. Her car was later discovered on the side of the road by a Metro Parks officer, Sgt Chris Dickerson told News Channel 5.

“He came up upon the vehicle and he realised that it had several bullet holes in the vehicle, and then he saw that there was an individual inside slumped over the steering wheel, so he positioned his vehicle in front of hers, and I believe called for additional units,” Sgt Dickerson said.

Officers initially suspected that the altercation stemmed from a road rage incident, and that one of the men inside the car fired at least six rounds into Kaufman’s grey Mazda SUV with one of the bullets causing her fatal wound.

A medical examiner said that it took 15 seconds for the 26-year-old to succumb to her wounds, WZTZ reported. But in that small window, she managed to pull over to the shoulder of the highway before dying.

The pair of men did not take any plea deal. The district attorney handling the case is requesting that both suspects receive a life in prison sentence without parole.