GUILTY NC - Timothy Grant, 55, shot to death in Buncombe County, 5 Dec 2014

According to warrants, Timothy Grant was already dead when he arrived at Transylvania Regional Hospital on Dec. 5

Grant's wife, Sandy Blythe, told deputies she and her husband were in a gravel parking lot off Highway 191 near the French Broad River that night, and were supposed to meet two men. Blythe says her husband didn't tell her why they were meeting the men.

Blythe tells deputies the men started arguing and tried to rob her husband. Warrants say when she stepped out of the car with a gun, one of the men took it from her and it fired, accidentally hitting her husband.

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The woman told police that after the shooting, she and the men “struggled and then the males put Mr. Grant in the passenger seat of her vehicle,” according to the warrant.

The woman told investigators she then drove to her home in Transylvania County, with Grant deceased in her car. Once home, the woman “let the dog out, and called her sister to ask her to give the dog medicine at 8 p.m. if she wasn’t back,” according to the warrant. She “then washed a pot in the sink that she had used earlier, smoked cigarettes, and then drove back to town.”

She called a friend and asked him to meet her at the Enmark station at 431 Asheville Highway in Brevard, then asked the man to follow her to Transylvania Regional Hospital. Before they had reached the hospital, the woman pulled over, with the man following suit, and she asked him to check Grant’s pulse.

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"I went over and touched him and [Tim] didn't have no pulse," Pressley said. "I said, 'Sandy, I think he's dead.' She just flew all to pieces and fell down on the asphalt," Pressley said. "I said we need to get him to the hospital"...

Pressley said he sees red flags in Blythe's story and is adamant he had nothing to do with the shooting or Grant's death. "I wasn't involved at all," Pressley said. "I think it had to have been an accident."

Pressley said Blythe has continued to call him for emotional support after Grant's death. His call log showed a call between Pressley and Blythe at 5:01 p.m. Dec. 6, which is the day after investigators believe Grant was shot and killed. Additional logs show conversations between Blythe and Pressley at 8:35 p.m. on Dec. 11 and 6:22 p.m. Dec. 13.

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Sandy Blythe, the wife of a Tim Grant who was brought dead to a regional hospital early last month has confessed to his murder, investigators say...

"The two had been arguing for a period of time, " said Sheriff David Mahoney. "As a result of that argument, she admitted to shooting him."

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Sandy Blythe has been sentenced to roughly six to eight years in prison after she pleaded guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of her husband, Tim Grant, on Dec. 5, 2014.

Blythe initially pleaded innocence in the case.

But after a lengthy investigation, the then 63-year-old Blythe was arrested in late January of 2015 following her confession to killing Grant after an argument between the two on Dec. 5 in the Little River area.

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Grant said her former stepmother had no remorse and shed no tears in the courtroom during the hearing. She said she wants to look into all the detectives' paperwork to see what was done to build a case against Blythe before she went to authorities with various reasons for killing Tim Grant -- reasons which exonerated her from having malicious intent. Her last confession, and the one the district attorney factored into the plea, was that Blythe told a detective Tim Grant was sick and wanted her to put him out of his misery.

"My dad would do anything for anyone," Grant said, holding back tears. "He damn sure didn't want to die. She(Sandy) is not stupid, she may be mental, but she knew what she was doing."

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