On Tuesday, images allegedly obtained from the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Franklin, Tennessee, reveal that country music singer Naomi Judd left a heartbreaking note before taking her own life last year.
The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter was 76 when she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and reportedly wrote that she didn’t want her daughter, and fellow singer, Wynonna, 58, at her funeral.
“Do not let Wy come to my funeral. She’s mentally ill,” Naomi appears to have written on a yellow Post-it Note, underlining the word “not.”
Another photograph shows what appears to be Judd’s blood-splattered bed and a gun on a bedside table.
The images were first reported by RadarOnline, and show the note attached to documents from investigators with a yellow evidence marker sitting on top of them.
However, Wynonna did end up attending the funeral last year, a source told the outlet, appearing alongside her sister, actress Ashley Judd, at the “Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration” when it was broadcast from Ryman Auditorium in Nashville live last year, on May 15.
According to the Daily Mail, one officer’s report noted that Judd’s husband, musician Larry Strickland, was traveling at the time of her death, adding that Naomi didn’t want to be alone.
The report confirmed that Ashley was the one who discovered Naomi in her bed and called the ambulance, the outlet reported. However, it adds that, before her mother shot herself, the actress reported seeing her in a manic state and calling Dr. Ted Klontz, their doctor.
Klontz attended to Naomi in her bedroom but had left before Ashley discovered her mother had passed.
Naomi had been open about her struggles with mental health prior to her death on April 30, 2022, at her Tennessee home. In the weeks following her mother’s death, Ashley opened up about her grief with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” where she first revealed her mother’s cause of death, months before it was officially confirmed, noting that her family was wary about disclosing how her mother died prior to the news.
“There are some things that we would just like to retain as a family,” Ashley said. “Both sister and Pop [stepfather Larry Strickland] have sort of deputized me in certain ways to speak on behalf of the family at this early time before things about the 30th of April become public without our control.”
“Once I say it, it cannot be unsaid,” Ashley said, in tears. “She used a weapon … my mother used a firearm. So, that’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it, someone else is going to.
“I don’t know that we’ll be able to get the privacy we deserve … I do know that we’re not alone,” Ashley said in an essay posted to the New York Times after her mother’s death. “We feel deep compassion for Vanessa Bryant and all families that have had to endure the anguish of a leaked or legal public release of the most intimate, raw details surrounding a death.”
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