26-Year-Old Woman Charged With Attempted Murder Of Homeless Man On Music Row

NASHVILLE, TN — A 26-year-old aspiring outlaw country singer/rapper was charged Monday in last month's attempted murder of a homeless man on Music Row, but her father tells The Tennessean there's more to the story.

Katie Layne Quackenbush is accused of firing two shots at 54-year-old Gerald Melton after a confrontation stemming from Quackenbush's loud stereo and exhaust emanating from her Porsche SUV in the wee hours of August 29.

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According to investigators, Melton was trying to sleep on the sidewalk at 3 a.m. when the fumes and music "disturbed" him and he he asked the driver of the Porsche, alleged to have been Quackenbush, to move the vehicle. This led to an argument and Melton told police he walked back to his sleeping spot. Then, according to police, Quackenbush got out of her Porsche and fired two shots at Melton, who remains hospitalized with a gunshot wound to abdomen. Quackenbush's passenger confirmed to police that Quackenbush was the shooter, according to an arrest affidavit.

In an interview with The Tennessean, Quackenbush's father, Jesse, said that Melton accosted his daughter and her passenger and made explicit remarks at them.

“He comes up to their window and starts screaming in their window various threats, and something about turning their music down and that he couldn’t sleep,” Jesse told the newspaper.

When Melton approached the women, Quackenbush fired two "warning shots" after she "closed her eyes," her father said.

Jesse Quackenbush said his daughter turned herself in and cooperated with a police investigation.

Katie Layne Quackenbush is an alt-country singer and sometime-rapper, according to her social media accounts (some of the photos and the lyrics of the rap song are explicit). She at one time ran a company which provided "promo girls" for extreme sports events.

Quackenbush has twice been arrested for assault in her native Texas. One case in Amarillo, where her father is a defense attorney, was dismissed in 2013 and she was ordered to pay $400 in attorney's fees.

A second charge in Potter County, Texas, from December 2016 is still pending. In that case, prosecutors say Quackenbush hit another woman with a glass. Her father told The Tennessean that she threw the water at her ex-husband's girlfriend as a response to some "insulting remarks."

Image via Metro Nashville Police