Tashley Gateley, a 32-year-old woman from Plano, Texas, was killed inside her home on the night of September 13, 2026. At approximately 10:15 p.m., Plano police officers and Plano Fire-Rescue personnel were dispatched to a reported shooting in the 1100 block of Lakestream Drive. Officers entered the residence and found Gateley suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Fire-rescue personnel pronounced her dead at the scene. Other family members were inside the house when the shooting occurred, but police said none of them were physically injured. Investigators determined that Gateley and the person suspected of shooting her knew one another and initially described the killing as an isolated incident with no continuing threat to the public.
Police identified the suspected gunman as 31-year-old Dallas resident William Ralph Grundy, Gateley's former boyfriend. Gateley's sister, Brianna Gipson, later told FOX 4 that Gateley had moved into the Plano residence only a few months earlier while trying to get away from what Gipson described as an abusive relationship. Gipson said Grundy had continued contacting Gateley and sending threatening messages. According to the family's account, all five of Gateley's children were home that night, and one child was in bed with her when Grundy entered the residence using a spare key. Gipson said Grundy ordered the child to go upstairs before shooting Gateley 13 times. Police publicly confirmed that Gateley had suffered multiple gunshot wounds but did not independently specify the number of shots in their initial account.
Grundy fled before responding officers arrived. According to Gateley's family, one of her children managed to record the license plate number of the Dodge Charger he was believed to be driving, providing investigators with information that helped in the search for him. Plano detectives continued working through the night and, during the early morning hours of September 14, located Grundy's vehicle parked at a hotel in a neighboring city. Officers established surveillance on the vehicle while investigators obtained an arrest warrant charging Grundy with murder.
At approximately 9:50 a.m. on September 14, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, working with Plano police and the U.S. Marshals Service, attempted to stop the Dodge Charger on northbound Interstate 35 near Sanger. Grundy refused to stop, beginning a pursuit northbound on the interstate. Authorities said he fired multiple shots toward pursuing law-enforcement officers during the chase. No officers were reported injured.
The pursuit continued toward the Denton and Cooke county line, where Grundy's Charger crashed into the center median. Shortly afterward, the vehicle caught fire, and the Sanger Fire Department responded to extinguish the flames. Grundy was pronounced dead at the scene. Initial public statements did not establish precisely whether his death resulted from injuries sustained in the crash, the subsequent fire, or another cause. The Texas Rangers began investigating the circumstances surrounding the pursuit and fatal crash.
Because Grundy died before he could be taken into custody, there will be no criminal trial or conviction in Gateley's killing unless investigators identify another person as criminally responsible. The murder warrant obtained for Grundy shows that authorities had developed probable cause to charge him before the pursuit began. Plano police continued handling Gateley's homicide through the department's Crimes Against Persons Unit while the Texas Rangers separately investigated the events surrounding Grundy's death. Police said the homicide investigation remained active following the fatal pursuit.
Gateley's death left five children without their mother. Her family remembered her as a deeply caring person and began raising money for funeral expenses and counseling for the children. What began as a late-night shooting investigation in a Plano neighborhood quickly became a multijurisdictional search for a murder suspect and ended the following morning on Interstate 35, with the man police intended to arrest dead after a pursuit, crash and vehicle fire.
