The third and final suspect wanted in the March 2024 killings of two teenagers at a Hermitage apartment complex is now behind bars after a high-speed chase in Arkansas ended with his SUV flipping over and catching fire. Lemarkius Ross, 30, was taken into custody by Arkansas State Police on Interstate 555 in Craighead County on July 31, closing out a nearly two-and-a-half-year search for everyone accused in the deaths of 17-year-old Camron McGlothen and 18-year-old Reginald Smart.
Metro Nashville Police announced the arrest, according to WKRN News 2, confirming that authorities had finally caught up with the last suspect connected to the shooting at Hermitage Flats along Old Hickory Boulevard. Ross reportedly gave officers a false name before revealing his real identity while being transported to a medical facility, according to the NEA Report. He is reportedly being held in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and is expected to eventually return to Nashville.
Ross now faces eight separate charges in Craighead County stemming from the pursuit itself, including felony fleeing and simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms. The NEA Report notes that law enforcement recovered a handgun, suspected methamphetamine, and marijuana at the crash scene, and that an Arkansas judge set his bond at $2 million before his extradition to Tennessee can move forward.
How the Attack Unfolded at Hermitage Flats
The shooting that started it all happened around 4:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, 2024, while McGlothen and Smart — who lived together at the complex — were standing near a building breezeway, per the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. Police said three suspects approached the teens on foot, with at least one wearing a ski mask, and opened fire with multiple gunshots before running from the scene. Responding officers found both teens unresponsive on the ground; the attack was characterized as targeted. Hoodline first reported on the shooting in the days after it happened, when McGlothen was identified as one of the victims.
Hermitage Flats sits at 5636 Old Hickory Boulevard, within the department's Hermitage Precinct, whose officers responded to the scene within minutes of the call. The case took nearly two years to fully resolve, with each of the three suspects apprehended in a different jurisdiction under very different circumstances.
A Trail of Arrests Across Two States
The first suspect taken into custody was 34-year-old LaArthur Robinson-Ross III, who was arrested in March 2025 in Montgomery County while already jailed on unrelated charges and residing in Clarksville at the time. He now faces a double murder indictment in Davidson County and remains held in Montgomery County.
Xavier Ellison, 35, was the second suspect caught, taken into custody in November 2025 after Franklin Police pulled him over on I-65 South for illegal window tint. The unrelated traffic stop unraveled when Ellison reportedly gave officers a false name before they verified his identity and discovered outstanding murder warrants. He was booked into Davidson County jail on two counts of first-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Metro Nashville Police.
What Comes Next in Davidson County
With all three men now in custody, prosecutors face the task of building a case in Davidson County Circuit Court against three separate co-defendants. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-13-202, first-degree murder is defined as an intentional, premeditated killing and carries mandatory penalties of life imprisonment with or without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty, as outlined by Justia. Prosecutors in first-degree murder cases must prove premeditation or underlying felony intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Hermitage Flats shooting happened during a period when gun violence among Nashville's teenagers and young adults was near a peak. Metro Nashville Police data showed Davidson County recorded 104 criminal homicides in 2024, with more than half of victims between 18 and 34 and 14 victims between 13 and 17, according to the TBA Law Blog. Guns were involved in 92 of those homicides.
The picture has since shifted. Nashville recorded 74 homicides in 2025 — a 27.5% drop from 2024 and the lowest annual total in a decade — ending a five-year streak of more than 100 annual homicides in the county, according to District Attorney General Glenn R. Funk. Overall violent crime in the city fell nearly 14% over that same year, even as the long investigation into McGlothen and Smart's deaths continued to unfold in the background.
