Troubled country music singer Mindy McCready has died from what the Cleburne County, Ark. Coroner is calling a single self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to Fox News, on Feb. 18, an autopsy is pending.
Tragically, it was just one month ago that the body of David Wilson, McCready’s boyfriend and father of her 9-month-old son Zayne, was found on the same porch where McCready’s body was found. Wilson’s death was also treated as a suicide.
McCready was sent to court-ordered rehab earlier this month after her father came forward to say she was no longer taking proper care of herself or her children, Zander and Zayne. He also told the court she was once again abusing drugs and alcohol. The children were removed and placed in foster care but it is unclear as to where there were at the time of their mother’s death.
According to an interview McCready gave to NBC’s “Today,” she was not taking Wilson’s death well. She said he was her “soul mate” and a caregiver to her sons. She called dealing with his death the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Mindy came to Nashville in 1994 as a teenager with demo tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a record deal with BNA Records. She hit number one in 1996 with “Guys Do It All the Time.” Later that year she released “Ten Thousand Angels and her album achieved 2 million copies sold.
Personal problems began for the singer in 2004, problems which included a bitter custody battle with her own mother over her oldest son, a drug overdose and a tempestuous love life.
In 2011, Mindy took her son from her mother, Gayle Inge, without permission and fled the state. Authorities later found her hiding in a home in Arkansas and took the boy into custody.
In May 2010, she was hospitalized briefly after police responded to an overdose call at a home in North Fort Myers, Fla., owned by her mother. This followed a stint on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," where she declared herself clean from drugs. She is the fifth celebrity appearing on that show to have died.
2010 found her in the hospital following a drug overdose in the Florida home of her mother. This led to an appearance on the show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," where she stated she was clean from drugs. McCready makes the fifth celebrity to have appeared on the show and later died.
Prior to that, she was arrested for obtaining the painkiller OxyContin without a prescription in 2004. She pleaded guilty and was put on three-year probation. In May of 2005, she violated probation when she was arrested for drunk driving. Just days after the arrest, she was beaten by her then boyfriend who was in turn charged with attempted criminal homicide. Mindy tried to take her own life in July of 2005, overdosed in September of that year and tried to kill herself again in 2008 by slitting her wrists.
McCready’s criminal troubles mounted as well. She had arrests for hindering prosecution and unlawful use of transportation in 2008 relating to an alleged attempt to buy two speed boats in 2005. She was arrested again in 2007 for scratching her mother’s face during a scuffle in Florida and for resisting arrest.
The troubled singer was arrested in June 2008 for violating her probation from the 2004 drug charge by lying about her community service records.
Other McCready hits include "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now," "A Girl's Gotta Do (What a Girl's Gotta Do)" and "You'll Never Know."
The loss is tragic and made more so by it avoidability. Mindy, you will be missed. Rest in peace at last.
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