Luke’s Heartbreak: Bryan's Prized Red Stag Shot Dead On His Tennessee Farm
The country singer is offering a big reward for whoever finds the killer.
Dec. 10 2019, Updated 3:14 p.m. ET
Luke Bryan is mourning the loss of one of his own. RadarOnline.com has learned a red stag owned by the country music superstar was shot and killed on his farm just outside of Nashville. Now authorities are searching for the shooter, and Bryan is offering a $5000 reward for anyone with information.
According to local reports, the animal, which is a species of deer with similar characteristics to an elk, was apparently killed sometime between the evening of December 4 and the early morning of December 6.
Barry Cross of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency said the animal was likely shot from across the road. He had harsh words for whomever pulled the trigger.
“As an agency we appreciate our hunters who do the right thing and follow the bylaws, and it takes a second for someone to ruin it for all of us,” he said.
Bryan – who is currently a judge on American Idol – has yet to comment on the loss. Sadly, this is not the first time he has had to deal with the death of a loved one.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Bryan was just 19 years old when his brother Chris died in a car accident.
Tragedy struck again in 2007, when the singer’s sister, Kelly, died suddenly. Bryan opened up in a 20/20 interview about his sibling’s deaths, saying: “My only older siblings … gone from the world, in a flash in two, two different, crazy, tragic manners, that … we’ll never know, and never understand.”
When Kelly’s husband, Ben Lee Cheshire, died seven years later. Bryan and his wife, Caroline Boyer, decided to raise the couple’s young son, Til, as their own.
“It just totally rocked our family’s world, rocked my world,” the “Country Girl” singer told TODAY host Willie Geist in 2017. “It makes you appreciate chasing dreams, you know. You’re like, hey you get one go-round at this thing called life and it’s very fragile, so you better go after your dreams.