KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Police say last night's deadly drive-by shooting in East Knoxville, targeted the wrong man; a retiree, and a church volunteer--trying to care for his 92-year-old mother.

LeRhonda Hill calls her father, her family's "go-to" guy.

"He was a man who couldn't tell you no," she says.

"If there was ever something you needed to be done, fixed--he was right there."

That's why, as on most every night: 66-year-old Lester
Marvin Walton was at his mother's house, on Ashland Avenue Thursday night, cooking, and getting her ready for bed.

"They were sitting, watching the ballgame--the Lady Vols, they were going back and forth between the men's and women's games," she says.

"And all of a sudden they heard gunshots. And my mother, told everybody to get on the floor. But my Dad had already been hit.

Mr. Walton died at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, while surgeons were trying to remove a bullet from his neck.

"He was not the intended target," says Knoxville Police spokesman Darrell Debusk.

"Nor was anyone in that household."

Police say they have questioned several witnesses, but they have not named any potential suspects or persons-of-interest.

LeRhonda Hill says street sources have told her family that her father's killer or killers were looking for payback for a shooting nearby, and may have mistaken her grandmother's house, for that of the intended target.

"I can accept death if he was sick, even in a car accident," she says.

"But a senseless shooting, and you don't know which house you're supposed to be shooting at?"

Hours later, family, friends and neighbors have gathered at the house Lester Walton, and his widow, Berniece, called home for most of their 47 married years.

"There is obviously, concern in the community," Debusk says.

"They are as anxious to see somebody arrested as we are.

Anxious. And angry.

"I'm gonna miss my Dad, LeRhonda Hill says. "But I can't think of what I'd say to whoever did this."

"They don't even care about their own lives, so really it probably wouldn't matter to whoever did it."

Lester Walton leaves behind his wife, four children, seven grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.