The Deaths of David Coots and Coy Hilliard
David Coots (left), and Coy Hilliard (right)
Introduction
There’s a saying in small towns: everyone knows everyone’s business, but sometimes dark secrets are kept hidden in the open. In the heart of Texas, this darkness took the shape of grief that didn’t look like your standard-issue grief. Instead, it looked a lot like partying and a whole lot of cleaning.
David Coots
Cortney was no stranger to fresh starts. When she met David, her second husband, she was struggling with addiction. David, by all accounts, was a stabilizer in her life - a man who saw her potential and wanted to help her find her footing. He paid for her nursing school and shouldered the responsibilities she was too lost in her struggles to bear. For 14 years, he kept their world steady, even as Cortney’s demons shapeshifted from drugs to alcohol, and even when her parenting responsibilities faded into the background. He paid for her nursing school, stuck it out - but everyone has their breaking point.
On January 13, 2018, David finally asked Cortney for a divorce. Less than a day later, he was dead, found unresponsive by the woman whose entire career was built on tending to the dying as a hospice nurse.
It was the first time death had visited their home, but what happened next was even stranger.
Not Your Average Grieving Widow
Courtney didn’t behave like a shocked widow. When her friend Valerie arrived to offer comfort, she found a house not weighted down with grief, but filled with smiles and relentless cleaning. The kind of cleaning that goes beyond distraction—walls wiped, surfaces scrubbed, rooms decluttered by people who usually avoided such effort. Within hours, David’s bed was dragged outside and burned, , and within days, photos and reminders of David were deleted from Cortney’s life. The family partied after the funeral, almost like they were celebrating an imminent life insurance payout.
Hospice Angel, or Doctor Death?
Odd stories leaked out of Cortney’s mouth in the days that followed. She insinuated that the police wouldn’t find the steroids she’d injected David with—but no steroids ever turned up in his system. She claimed to have performed CPR, but the autopsy showed no signs that it happened. There was a gap, a sizable gap, between David’s time of death and the 911 call. Cortney, ever the professional, seemed to forget her own training when it mattered most.
Cortney began to tell friends that David’s soul was happy when he died, and when prompted further on this, she said it was because she had seen it before when she watched her hospice patients die. Oh, yeah - I forgot to mention - Cortney had told people that she had mercy killed two of her hospice patients. Totally casual… The first patient wanted to die, so, to put him out of his misery, she placed a magnet on his pacemaker. The second, according to Cortney, simply needed to die. So, she suffocated her. Cortney was let go, but it is unclear whether there was ever a formal investigation, and as of today, her RN license is still active in Texas.
The Autopsy
The autopsy only deepened the “mystery.” David’s eyes and mouth showed signs of hemorrhaging - common in asphyxiation cases, but no definite cause of death could be named. There were no drugs, no major injuries… just uncertainty. Cause of death: undetermined. Manner of death: undetermined. The investigators, perhaps guided by the presence of Cortney’s stepfather, a retired sheriff's corporal, shrugged their collective shoulders. The bed where David died had already gone up in flames.
Even though the Medical Examiner noted that further information could allow for re-examination and different findings, nobody bothered.
Excerpt from the autopsy of David Coots
Excerpt from the autopsy of David Coots
Coy Hilliard
Life rolled on for Cortney. She moved on quickly, erasing David from memory and telling new tales about him that no one had heard before.
Coy, husband number three, entered the story next, and the cycle started all over again. Coy, like David, stepped in during one of Cortney’s lows, tried to add stability, and bore the mounting weight as she spiraled back into substance use. After Coy asked for a divorce, he, too, died “unexpectedly.” The script was identical - timeline inconsistencies, family allowed to clean and clear out evidence, and Cortney’s stepfather again hovering at the edge of the investigation.
No crime scene tech showed up. Coy’s bloodwork went ignored. His BAC was inexplicably sky-high for someone who’d only had a couple beers. Cortney disposed of his belongings and again partied through the grief. Money from insurance policies and property transfers slid quietly into her hands.
Both times, investigations were half-hearted - a pattern reinforced by the looming presence of Cortney’s stepfather, former local law enforcement. No external agencies, no tough questions, no real pursuit of the truth. The system wasn’t blind; it simply chose not to see. Instead, it allowed the stories of David and Coy to rest in bureaucratic limbo, neither closed nor investigated, just sitting on a shelf, out of sight.
So What Now?
According to Kyla (Coy’s sister), Coy's case is currently sitting at the DA's office for review. Which is just where uncomfortable cases go to be smothered quietly. Kyla has been continuously led on and continuously let down. They have not done a single additional investigative step since early summer. Not one. No movement, no urgency, no follow through.
Nothing is happening because nothing is supposed to happen. And if that doesn't make you angry, it should. Because this is what it looks like when the justice system decides that some deaths are inconvenient and some families are untouchable. Two men that they are trying to erase, one family being protected and a system hoping everybody shuts up and moves on.
Thank you to this week's sources:
The following sources were provided by family/close friends:
Autopsy of David Coots
David Coots' police report
Autopsy of Coy Hilliard
Kyla - Timeline/sequence of events
