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McCready shot dog before her suicide

Posted at 5:46 PM, Feb 18, 2013
and last updated 2013-02-18 17:46:26-05

(CNN) — Country singer Mindy McCready appears to have shot a dog that belonged to her late boyfriend, David Wilson, prior to shooting herself, Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss said Monday.

McCready was found dead Sunday at her home in Arkansas from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the local sheriff’s office said in a statement. She was 37.

Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to a report of gunshots fired Sunday afternoon and found McCready’s body on the front porch, the statement read.

McCready leaves behind two boys, one of whom is 10 months old. The infant’s father, record producer David Wilson, killed himself last month.

The singer struggled with addiction and mental illness, often publicly. She appeared in an episode of “Celebrity Rehab” three years ago with Dr. Drew Pinsky, who said he contacted her last month after her boyfriend’s death.

“When I heard she was struggling, I did reach out to her and urged her to go to take care of herself, get in a facility if she felt she needed,” said Pinsky, who hosts his own program on CNN’s sister network HLN.

“Her biggest fear was the stigma of doing so and what people would think if she, God forbid, took care of herself. And this to me is the most distressing part of this story. She is a lovely woman, we have lost her, and it didn’t have to go down like this.”

McCready burst onto the music scene in 1996 with her debut album “10,000 Angels” and the chart-topping hit “Guys Do It All the Time.”

CNN contributed to this report.