Rocker Chris Daughtry’s wife lashed out on social media Friday against rumors that her 25-year-old daughter’s death was a homicide.
“We were not told that and never said that to anyone!” Deanna Daughtry said in an Instagram post in response to speculation stoked by a TMZ report.
Her daughter, Hannah Price, was found dead at her home near Nashville on Nov. 12. No cause of death has been released; her mother said in an earlier post that the family was waiting for an autopsy to determine how she got the “injuries” that caused her death.
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“The day Hannah was found I shared some concerns I had with some ppl I know and said we won’t know anything for sure till after they complete the investigation,” Daughtry wrote on Friday.
“Someone took that and went running with it or they talked to someone else who then made assumptions and went running to the press with it. None of us can go jumping to conclusions.”
TMZ had reported that Price’s boyfriend was taken into custody after her death, though police later said that was for an unrelated matter linked to the couple’s arrest in a road-rage incident earlier in the year.
Deanna Daughtry expressed concern that someone was being blamed without evidence.
“Having questions & concerns is one thing but harassing someone and calling them a murderer before all the facts are in is wrong on every level regardless of their history,” she wrote. “If you have information that you feel the police should know about this then tell them and let them do their job.”
She said the swirl of rumors was compounding the family’s grief.
“I lost my child and I’m having to now also deal with rumors and assumptions about her. The people who loved her are in pain and we are mourning they are not talking to the press, they are not spreading rumors and they sure as hell are not making this about themselves. So everyone please just stop!” she wrote.
Price was Deanna’s daughter from a relationship before she married Chris Daughtry—who would later go on to compete on American Idol—two decades ago.
Price’s father died by suicide in 2018 and months later, she was shot in the face during what she described on Facebook as an unexpected encounter with a gang member.
Chris Daughtry, who now fronts an eponymous band, wrote on Instagram that Price’s death was devastating.
“I just recently lost my mother to cancer but I was blessed with the chance to say goodbye and I was processing it privately. We never got to say goodbye to our precious Hannah and it’s another huge hit to our family,” he wrote.
