Bayou Billionaires star Valerie Dowden Wells was killed in what police now say was a murder-suicide, CBS affiliate KSLA reports. She was 47. Find out more in the video above, and detailed below.
Wells was shot multiple times as she sat in the driver’s seat of her parked car outside a McDonald’s in Shreveport, Louisiana, authorities confirmed. She was later pronounced dead at University Health Hospital.
Near the chain restaurant, police found a 46-year-old man named Robert Gaddy with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died after the Shreveport Fire Department transported him to the same hospital.
Shreveport Police Department Corporal Marcus Hines told KSLA that Wells and Gaddy may have had a relationship in the past. No other information was provided.
Wells was best known for starring on the short-lived CMT series Bayou Billionaires in 2012. The reality show focused on her family and the discovery that the fourth-largest deposit of natural gas in the U.S. was located underneath their home.
Wells worked in the public defender’s office in Mansfield before her passing. Her parents, Kitten and Gerald Dowden, reportedly posted about their loss via Facebook. “This is really hard on us and her children. It is out of order,” they wrote on Tuesday. “No parents should have to go through this.”
