LAKEPORT – The Lake County Sheriff's Office on Thursday identified a woman shot to death earlier this week and offered additional details about the circumstances that led to her shooting, allegedly committed by her estranged husband.
Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said Tracey Gillespie, 52, was the victim of the early morning shooting that occurred on Tuesday.
Bauman said an autopsy was performed on Tracey Gillespie Thursday morning at the Napa County Coroner’s Office. The exact cause of death is pending the findings of that autopsy.
Gillespie's estranged husband, Eddie Lee Gillespie, 50, called the sheriff's dispatch center on Tuesday morning and allegedly reported that he had shot his wife, Bauman reported.
Eddie Gillespie was taken into custody without incident a short time later at his wife's Walnut Way home in Clearlake Oaks and charged with murder, Bauman said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff said Eddie Gillespie made his first court appearance on the murder charge on Thursday, going before Judge Richard Martin.
Martin set Gillespie's bail at $1.5 million and appointed attorney Stephen Carter to represent him, Hinchcliff said. Gillespie is due to return to court on Friday morning.
The investigation into Tracey Gillespie's murder, led by the sheriff's Major Crimes Unit, has so far revealed that Eddie and Tracey Gillespie had only been married since this past February and that their relationship was apparently estranged, Bauman said.
Bauman said the two maintained separate homes – Tracey Gillespie lived in Clearlake Oaks and Eddie Gillespie lived in Clearlake.
An incident just a few days before the shooting may have contributed a motive, Bauman said.
Last Sunday, Tracey Gillespie and her husband's 27-year-old son, Kyle Gillespie, had an argument at Eddie Gillespie’s home, which resulted in Kyle Gillespie’s arrest for battery by the Clearlake Police Department, according to Bauman.
The couple had reportedly been arguing about Kyle Gillespie’s arrest on and off since Sunday’s incident, Bauman said. When Eddie Gillespie called dispatch Tuesday morning to report the shooting, he allegedly stated that his wife had “put his son in jail.”
Kyle Gillespie was released on his own recognizance by the courts the same day his father was booked for murder, Bauman said.
At Thursday night's Clearlake City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Joyce Overton called for a moment of silence for Tracey Gillespie, who was a member of the city's Volunteers in Policing program.
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