Country superstar Mindy McCready was found dead in Heber Springs, Ark. with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head. An autopsy is planned to determine the exact reasons at a later date.
According to CBS News, McCready, who was 37, leaves behind two young sons.
For a singer whose personal demons, including the assumed suicide of her boyfriend and father of her 10-month-old son, David Wilson, seemed to overshadow her career success, it is a tragic end to a very promising life.
CBS News reports that in a Jan. 29 interview, McCready, speaking through tears, said, "He didn't just touch my heart. He touched my soul. He was my soul mate."
Her feelings for Wilson was made clear as her body was found on the same porch where Wilson died, CBS reports.
The sad, but ironic part of all of this is that, in a June 2010 interview with CBS News, McCready addressed reports she had attempted to commit suicide multiple times.
I was never in a state in which I was conscious and with it and said, 'Oh I want to die,'" she said then.
In an interview that same year with the Associated Press, McCready smiled wryly while talking about the string of issues she'd dealt with over the last half-decade.
"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said of her life. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."
Either way, McCready was dealing with extreme emotions. Even before the death of Wilson, she had twin issues that have persisted for years - substance abuse and the custody of her children. She checked into court-ordered rehab and gave her children up to foster care earlier this month after her father asked a judge to intervene, saying she'd stopped taking care of herself and her sons and was abusing alcohol and prescription drugs, according to CBS News.
It's not clear where her sons, 6-year-old Zander and infant Zayne, were Sunday.
News of McCready's death spread quickly Sunday night on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.
"Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready," wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.
And Carrie Underwood added: "I grew up listening to Mindy McCready ... so sad for her family tonight. Many prayers are going out to them..." (all tweets taking from CBS News report).
Check out the videos below: an interview before her death and a package on her death:
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
