"As sad as it is, it didn't come as a major shock," Billy McKnight told the Today show. "She's just been battling demons for so long."
He added, "I was around her when she attempted suicide twice, so I knew it was in her."
Cleburne County, Arkansas, sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunshots Sunday at 3:31 p.m. and discovered McCready's body on the front porch of her Heber Springs house. Neighbors reportedly had heard two shots, and the deputies found dead at the scene McCready's dog and the singer herself.
"The demons that she hasn't beaten were there," McKnight said of McCready, 37, who had battled substance abuse.
Following last month's death of her fiancé David Wilson, which is currently under investigation as either a suicide or a murder, the courts ordered McCready to be institutionalized.
Asked on Today if she might have been released too early, McKnight said he knew McCready could talk her way out of anything.
"I feel for her mother and her family and especially my son," said McKnight, whose boy, Zander, was the subject of a bitter and prolonged custody battle with McCready.
After the death of Wilson, Zander and his 10-month-old half-brother, Zayne, whose father was Wilson, were placed in foster care, where they remain. McKnight said that he wants his son returned to him: "He needs to come home."
As for the other child, "I don't know what is going to happen to Zayne," he said.
Zander and Billy McKnight, summer 2011
Courtesy Billy McKnight
Mindy McCready's Ex 'Not Shocked' by Her Suicide
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Mindy McCready's Ex 'Not Shocked' by Her Suicide
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Mindy McCready's Ex 'Not Shocked' by Her Suicide
