A Nashville community is grappling with loss after a teenager was killed in an early morning shooting in Old Hickory. The 17-year-old victim, identified by his girlfriend as Caleb Womack, was fatally wounded when multiple gunshots were fired into his residence around 12:30 a.m. on Bryan Street, WSMV reports. The Metro Nashville Police Department responded to the scene, where the teen was subsequently transported to the hospital and pronounced dead.

The investigation, still in its nascent stages, has detectives canvassing the Historic Old Hickory Village with police knocking on doors to stitch together the events that culminated in the shooting. Informants hinted that they heard four gunshots around 1 a.m., according to FOX 17 News. Womack's girlfriend, Kylee Harter, has made an emotional plea for justice, saying "I just want to know who did it and I want to get justice for him," as she told WSMV.

Described as a rising senior at McGavock High School, Womack's passing has left an impression on those close to him, such as Harter, who remembered her boyfriend as a contagious presence of joy, expressing to News 2, "He was a really good kid he was the best boyfriend ever, that I could ever wish for, the way he laughed all the time, it made me laugh, his smile was contagious he was always smiling he smiled, you smile too." Harter has confirmed that two of Womack's friends were in the home at the time of the incident.

As the community and Womack's loved ones await answers, the police have not yet named suspects or established a motive for the shooting, and details surrounding the incident remain sparse; meanwhile, residents and peers of Womack may find themselves searching for solace, trying to reconcile the sudden absence of a young life that, by all personal accounts, was a beacon of happiness in Old Hickory, and the gravity of his death comes as a stark reminder of the fragility within their own lives and the lives that decorate their streets and fill the classrooms such as McGavock High, WSMV reports.