The daughter of country music superstar Wynonna Judd appeared last month in Virginia, but she wasn't on stage or even backstage. Instead, after allegedly stealing a Charlottesville church's van, 28-year-old Grace Pauline Kelley remains held without bail at Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
"She didn't seem like she was in her right mind at all," Kent Hart, pastor of Charlottesville-based Ground Zero Church of the Nazarene, told The Daily Progress.
Hart chased down the woman who has pending charges in multiple states and now faces seven charges in Albemarle, Virginia, including three felony counts of grand larceny for allegedly stealing the van and a trailer that Hart used to move church gear.
Hart said he was in the kitchen at his Scottsville-area home on the afternoon of Oct. 27, when he suddenly saw the van leaving his driveway.
"I'm talking to my daughter, and I look out the window and I see the van leaving my house," Hart said.
Kelley
AfterΒ determining that nobody in the family borrowed the van, Hart gave chase and found the vehicle stopped at edge of a road with a woman behind the wheel.
"I'm like, 'You stole my van, get out of my van,' beating on the door," he recounted. "And at this point, I see her very clearly. I saw her buzz cut and face tattoo."
Kelley has convictions in Tennessee, where her mother's music empire is headquartered, for methamphetamine production, evading arrest and driving while intoxicated. She has pending cases in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, where she's been charged with aggravated assault, trespassing, violation of a no-contact order, manufacturing methamphetamine and multiple allegations of failure to appear and allegations of probation violations.
"It looked to me like she could have been high, like she didn't really seem like she was completely in her right mind," Hart said.
The chase resumed and moved from Rolling Road to Virginia Route 20, Hart said, shortly after he said Kelley drove around hisΒ Chevrolet Yukon, with which he had attempted to box her in. Eventually, Albemarle police officer Corey Legg initiated a traffic stop at Massie Branch Lane, just south of Simeon.
"Grace advised that a male suspect had exited the driver seat and ran into the woods," Legg wrote in a report.
Legg reviewed his dashcam footage just to make sure, and he determined that Kelley was the driver and sole occupant of the now-damaged van. Unusual assertions continued during the booking process.
"She began stating she had sold her soul to the devil," wrote Legg, noting that Kelley asked to be committed to a mental institution.
"I advised the jail staff that she may have taken something," he wrote. "I was later informed that the jail staff observed something inside of Ms. Kelley during her body scan."
She was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center to investigate.
"They found out it was just gas," Legg wrote, "but when they conducted Ms. Kelley's bloodwork, she tested positive for heroin."
Wynonna Judd pauses as she speaks during the Medallion Ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame Sunday, May 1, 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Legg subsequently filed a search warrant and obtained medical records to assist his investigation into whether Kelley was under the influence of a drug while driving. Such a charge, however, is not among the seven pending charges against Kelley.
Kelley's mother, herself the daughter of country music star Naomi Judd and sister of movie star Ashely Judd, has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, earned five Grammy Awards and sold more than 20 million records.Β
Kelly, meanwhile, has no fixed address and no reported income, according to her arrest paperwork.
Her case returns to Albemarle General District Court on Jan. 2, when she will be represented by the Office of the Public Defender.
With his house located far from any thoroughfare in a rural part of the county, Hart theorizes that Kelley surreptitiously climbed inside the trailer when the van was parked that day in Charlottesville. But why Kelley was in Charlottesville is unknown. The Daily Progress' efforts to reach her mother were not successful.
Hart said he and his church wants the best for Kelley.
"We devoted an entire service to her," Hart said. "We cut the livestream off, and we, as a church, prayed for her and her family."
He said that while he doesn't oppose consequences for Kelley's actions, he hopes she gets help.
"On a personal level level, we forgive her," Hart said. "If there's ever an opportunity for us to be a part of her redemptive process in any way, we're absolutely open to that."
Ground Zero Church of the Nazarene has launched a fundraiser for a new van. That fundraiser can be found atΒ www.gofundme.com/f/ground-zero-church-seeks-van-after-theft.
