David Christopher Wilson was 34 and working as a music producer and songwriter when he was found with a severe injury at a house on Fox Chase Road in Heber Springs, Arkansas, on the night of January 13, 2013. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead less than two hours later. Initial reports suggested a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but law enforcement did not immediately rule the manner of death and awaited state crime lab testing; gunshot residue testing was done on his girlfriend, country singer Mindy McCready, whose spokesperson called the death a suicide.

Friends described Wilson as quiet and positive and said suicide would have been out of character; he was reportedly set to inherit a substantial sum on his 35th birthday and had been staying in a hotel rather than the home he shared with McCready, suggesting tensions in the relationship. McCready denied killing him but said she wasn’t sure it was suicide. By February 2015 the prosecuting attorney still considered the case open, citing insufficient evidence to classify the death definitively; no arrests or suspects had been announced.