UPDATE: Reports are that LAPD have cleared Meisner in the accidental shooting. Lana Rae was moving the rifle in its case, and the gun went off. How completely strange.
EARLIER: RadarOnline broke the story this morning: the Lana Rae Meisner, wife of the Eagles’ founding member and bassist Randy Meisner, died from a gunshot last night at home in Los Angeles.
Earlier in the evening, the police had been called to the Meisner for a domestic dispute. An hour later, Lana Rae was dead.
Meisner helped form the Eagles in 1971 after being kicked out of Poco, another Southern Los Angeles country rock group. He wrote the hit “Take it to the Limit,” which borrowed heavily from the Gamble and Huff hit “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.” He left the group after “Hotel California” in 1977.
Meisner has a history of trouble, with suicide threats, alcohol, and erratic behavior. He told police that Lana Rae was rummaging around in a closet and a gun suddenly fell and blew her head off.
The Meisner scandal comes just a short time after the tragic death of the Eagles’ main founder, Glenn Frey, from a combination of illnesses.