Central Precinct detectives Sunday charged Kelvin D. Edwards, 35, with two counts of attempted murder for a callous, unprovoked and random machete attack on a husband and wife as they waited as customers inside the office of Public Storage, 800 5th Avenue South.
Edwards entered the office and, without warning, repeatedly struck the victims with his machete, even after they were on the floor badly bleeding. Kevin Craft, 55, and Leanne Craft, 50 are in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Crafts are residents of Brentwood, reports MNPD. Six MNPD officers used their special training in trauma care to apply multiple tourniquets to the victims in an effort to control the bleeding and save their lives.
The investigation, which is being led by Detective Brent Fisher, shows that Edwards, who is homeless, had a bin at Public Storage, which apparently contained the machete. In an interview with Detective Fisher, Edwards spoke of his anger over the COVID-19 shutdowns and his inability to get into the Rescue Mission. It appears Edwards retrieved the machete from his bin and explained that he decided to demonstrate his anger in the violent attack on the Crafts, who he did not know.
The Emergency Communications Center received a 911 call about the attack at 2:47 p.m. Officer Phillip Claibourne was on the scene quickly and had Edwards in custody at 2:50 p.m. After the attack, Edwards walked out of the storage facility, threw the machete down, and stood in the street raising his hands as the siren of Officer Claibourne’s approaching police car got louder.
Edwards, who today carried an Arkansas driver license with a Little Rock address, has been in Nashville since at least 2016, the year of his first arrests here. He was convicted of felony vandalism in 2017 and, while in jail, was charged with deliberately spitting on two Davidson County Sheriff’s deputies. They prosecuted him on two counts of assault. He was convicted on both charges.
The six officers who rushed into the storage facility office to render aid to the Crafts are James Hill, James Wells Jr., Alexander Hartle, Gabriel Vasquez, William Hamblen, and Jordan Shaffer.
