What the TBI report says about the hours leading up to Grammy-winner Mark Capps' death

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Before SWAT officers descended on his Hermitage home, Mark Capps battled mental health issues that led to a night of mixing medication and alcohol, threatening to kill himself and taking his wife and stepdaughter hostage.

As officers approached the house Jan. 5 and attempted to serve an arrest warrant, Capps opened the door with a gun in hand, Nashville police said. Officer Kendall Coon fired four shots at the suspect, fatally wounding him.

Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk declined to file charges against the officers involved, telling Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) agent James Scarbro in a letter that Coon's actions were reasonably necessary under facts and circumstances existing in the case.

Capps, a Grammy-award winning artist, worked for decades in the music industry with the likes of Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond and Donna Summer. But he was also battling some serious demons after the deaths of several family members. His parents died two years before that fateful January night. His brother Jeffrey had died two days before.

The Davidson County District's Attorney has made the TBI's report on the case public. Here's what it says:

A TBI employee was in the home that night

From the beginning, Metro Nashville police said two women were inside the home the night Capps held them at gunpoint. When arrest warrants were issued for Capps, the victims listed included only his wife and her daughter, according to copies of those documents.

The TBI report makes clear there was, in fact, a fourth person — a boyfriend of Capps' stepdaughter. At the time of the shooting, he'd worked at TBI for six months. It's not immediately clear in what capacity he is employed with TBI, but statements in the agency's report indicate he is authorized to carry a firearm and Taser and his direct supervisors are special agents at the bureau.

The man was interviewed by other TBI agents for the investigation, during which he indicated he went to sleep about 11 p.m. and was awakened shortly before 2 a.m. to the sounds of banging and voices downstairs.

"He got dressed and put on his glasses and continued to listen. He did not immediately involve himself," a summary of his interview with agents said. The boyfriend waited in the bedroom while Capps' wife and stepdaughter attempted to calm him down and repeatedly asked him to put the guns away.

While armed, Capps made increasingly threatening statements, indicating he was going to shoot everyone, including the dogs. He told his stepdaughter to get her boyfriend from their bedroom, saying he would start with the boyfriend because he would try to protect everyone else.

"We'll make it a hostage situation," Capps said to the three, according to a transcript from video the stepdaughter took during the situation. They all sat in the living room while Capps continued to rant. The boyfriend made several attempts to talk Capps down, telling him he was a good man, and he eventually convinced Capps to put the guns away, according to the report.

While Capps was out of the room, the boyfriend asked the women if they wanted him to call 911. They both said no, according to the report.

Capps went to the bedroom shortly after 5 a.m. and asked the man not to report the incident at work. He "told him he wouldn’t do that and made Capps believe he didn’t have any power outside of work," the report notes.

The boyfriend then "snuck out of the house around 6 a.m. and went to work," remaining in communication with his girlfriend. Once Capps fell asleep, around 8:15 a.m., the women gathered some things, the dogs and drove straight to the Metro Nashville Police Hermitage Precinct.

The report does not indicate if the boyfriend reported the situation to colleagues or to police before the women got to the precinct.

The shooting, from Nashville police officers' perspective

While the report does not have exact transcripts of agents' interviews with the officers, the summaries do provide a succinct retelling of the events from their perspectives.

Coon was the focus of the TBI investigation. He was the only officer who fired his duty rifle, but two other officers were on the front stoop with him when the shooting happened.

Coon explained to investigators that because Capps had threatened harm to officers, the plan was to set up charges on the front and back doors, retreat, announce themselves, ask Capps to surrender and blow the doors off to gain entry, if necessary.

They didn't have the opportunity to finish putting the charge on the front door before Capps opened it.

Coon was acting as cover while officers Tim Brewer and Jason Rader set the charge.

Coon thought he saw movement, perhaps behind the peephole of the door, according to the report.

"Coon said he then looked at the crack of the door, while Officer Rader was kneeling to place the charge, which was about the time he saw the inside door begin to open," the report reads. "Coon said his natural response was to yell commands and he yelled ‘show me your hands.'"

Then, Coon said, he saw a gun.

"The door came open and from that moment, Coon said he saw the handgun and it was pointed directly at him and the other two officers," the report reads. "Coon described the gun being about 5 or 6 feet away from officers and the suspect was pointing the gun from his waist area with the barrel toward officers."

Rader, who was kneeling down, said, "it seemed like immediately when he touched the outer door, the interior door opened."

The report adds, "Rader said as he looked up, he saw a revolver. Rader said he had made up his mind that he would have to shoot this guy because he was pointing a gun at officers, and before he did, Coon fired.”

The gun, Rader said, was pointed level with his head.

"Rader further explained that in his mind, the best he could recall, was that the suspect kind of held the gun at a retention kind of position near his hip and close to his body," the report reads. "He said he believed the gun was already pointed in the direction of the officers as if the suspect knew officers were there at the door."

Coon fired four times at Capps.

Brewer recalled hearing Coon yell commands at Capps, but he wasn't sure why his colleague did it.

“Brewer said it was obvious to him that the suspect was pointing a gun, but he figured sometimes that is just the first thing that comes to mind, which is to yell because officers are used to commanding show me your hands," the report reads.

Capps suffered from depressive episode

There are numerous reported incidents in the file from the days leading up to the January shooting that show Capps' struggle with his mental health.

In text messages to a friend before Christmas, Capps explained that he'd had an argument with his brother Jeffrey. The two often did not get along, according to statements in the TBI report.

"I just had a [conversation] with my bro that ended with....9MM at my head," Capps wrote in one text message. He then sent a picture of himself holding a gun to his head, according to the TBI report. The friend told investigators, "she knew Capps was in a suicidal place and he had previously promised her that he was ok."

However, Mark Capps' friends and family described a series of concerning and paranoid behavior that began once Jeffrey Capps died. Mark Capps said he suspected his wife was unhappy in their marriage, and he ranted about drug-dealers he thought were coming to do them harm, according to the report.

He video chatted with one friend who described Capps as intoxicated and indicated he had loaded firearms ready to kill himself.

"He eventually heard Capps appear to unload guns and although he didn't see the guns, he could hear him unloading what sounded like bullets dropping into a drawer," the report said.

Capps also took several prescription medications, according to the report. On the night of the hostage situation, he began drinking after taking those medications.

A search of Capps computer revealed several concerning internet searches. In the days leading up to the incident, he twice searched "Tennessee divorce laws."

In back-to-back searches on Dec. 28, he looked up "fatal dose of Lortab" and "fatal dose of Xanax."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TBI releases Mark Capps Nashville shooting report: Here's what we know