Who Is Katie Quackenbush? Nashville Woman Charged For Shooting Homeless Man

A country musician was charged Monday with attempted murder for shooting a homeless man who asked her to move her SUV in Nashville, Tennessee, said police.

According to the victim, Gerard Melton, Katie Layne Quackenbush shot him twice during an altercation when he asked her to move her Porsche. Melton was trying to sleep on the pavement at 3 a.m. local time on Aug. 26 when he was disturbed by exhaust fumes and loud music coming from Quackenbush’s car. When he asked the woman to move the vehicle, an argument ensued and Quackenbush got out of the SUV with a firearm.

She then shot him and fled the scene. Melton, 54, remains hospitalized at Vanderbilt University Medical Center with a severe abdominal wound, according to police.

Originally from Amarillo, Texas, Quackenbush was arrested once earlier in 2013 on an assault charge in Amarillo but has no prior criminal convictions on her record. She was released from the Randall County Jail a day later after posting $5,000 bond. Quackenbush was charged with misdemeanor assault after being arrested in Potter County, Texas, on Dec. 17, 2016, Heavy.com reported.

The mother of a five-year-old boy is a country musician who performs under the name Katie Layne. According to her Twitter profile, some of the songs she released include “Midnight Revival,” and a spoof rap video called “Ski Tips Up Hoes Down.”

Quackenbush also started a now-defunct company called Stitches Promo Girls in 2011. "Our company brings Promo Girls in one easy step to businesses in the extreme sport community," reads the description of the company on Twitter. She talked about the company and promoted it on YouTube.

Her LinkedIn profile says Quackenbush went to Amarillo College and worked for Sanford Rose Associates, a Texas-based recruiting firm, as a recruiting artist.

Her father, Jesse Quackenbush, an attorney in Texas, told a local daily, the Tennessean, that his daughter and her friend — who accompanied her at the time of the incident — were accosted by Melton who threatened to kill them and made sexist comments against his daughter.

“She didn’t try and kill this guy,” Quackenbush said Monday night, a few hours after his daughter was arrested on the charge. “She had no intention of killing him. She didn’t know that she hit him.”

In a statement published by NBC 26, he said:

The two women were actually acting in self defense. The man was always on his feet and not asleep as someone apparently has alleged and had accosted a group of very young women and nearly became physical with one. He then approached the white Porsche (not Lexis) with two female occupants and started verbally accosting them threatening them because their music was too loud for him to sleep...The driver fired a round as a warning to scare him away as he came at her. He kept coming and she fired a second round, again intended to scare him away. They quickly got back into the white vehicle and left, not knowing that the man was hit by the warning shots. Both girls contacted the police and DA shortly after the incident and have always agreed to cooperate fully with the investigation.

Quackenbush is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 6.