Jeremy Mayfield files wrongful death lawsuit against stepmother Lisa Mayfield
Suspended NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Jeremy Mayfield has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his stepmother, Lisa Mayfield, over the death of his father two years ago. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
SALISBURY, N.C. – Suspended NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Jeremy Mayfield has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his stepmother, Lisa Mayfield, over the death of his father two years ago.
Terry Mayfield died Sept. 5, 2007, in what police investigators and the medical examiner concluded was a suicidal gunshot wound to the chest, according to investigation and medical examiner reports.
Jeremy Mayfield’s lawsuit, filed late Friday afternoon in North Carolina Superior Court in Rowan County, does not say how Lisa Mayfield was involved in the death of Terry. It only says that “as a direct and proximate result of the defendant’s intentional acts, the decedent Terry Allen Mayfield was killed by a gunshot wound.”
Jeremy Mayfield claims that prior to Terry Mayfield’s death, Terry confronted Lisa about an affair and asked her to leave. Within several days of Terry’s death, Jeremy claims the man Lisa was having an affair with broke up with his girlfriend and moved in with Lisa. It also claims that Lisa Mayfield squandered a loan meant to be used to build a barn.
Damages are not specified in the three-page complaint, with Mayfield only asking for more than $10,000 – the minimum for it to be field in North Carolina Superior Court.
Lisa Mayfield already has denied she had anything to do with her husband’s death as part of a defamation lawsuit she filed against Jeremy last month. Jeremy had made the alleged defamatory comments after she testified in an affidavit that she had seen Jeremy use methamphetamines.
Mayfield is challenging his NASCAR suspension – issued May 9 for what NASCAR says is a positive test for methamphetamines – in U.S. District Court. Mayfield claims that the test produced a false positive reading from the prescription drug Adderall, which is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and the over-the-counter allergy medicine Claritin-D.
NASCAR filed an affidavit in July that included Lisa Mayfield’s testimony that she had seen Jeremy use methamphetamines as part of the sanctioning body’s argument that Mayfield should remain suspended.
Lisa Mayfield’s lawsuit states that after the affidavit was filed, Jeremy Mayfield was quoted on television and other media outlets accusing his stepmother of being involved in the death of his father.
Jeremy Mayfield’s statements “were false and defamatory … and [Lisa Mayfield] has undergone great mental suffering and emotional distress as a result,” her lawsuit says.
Not included in either lawsuit is the police investigation of the death of Jeremy Mayfield’s father.
A Rowan County police investigation said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest at his home and that there were no signs of any criminal activity or foul play. Terry Mayfield’s death certificate also indicates a suicide.
The medical examiner’s narrative of the circumstances surrounding the death noted that Lisa Mayfield had said Terry Mayfield had been eating and drinking heavily for the previous three days and had been very depressed about not talking with Jeremy and that the suicide was only a matter of time.
A toxicology report from the state medical examiner’s office indicates a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.19 percent for Terry Mayfield. His body was cremated.
Jeremy Mayfield is the administrator of his father’s estate, and citing the financial burden, he allowed the home Terry shared with Lisa to go into foreclosure last year. The home was built in 2003, with Lisa and Terry Mayfield taking out the loan. It is on 3.8 acres deeded from Jeremy to his father in 2002.
Lisa Mayfield was arrested Aug. 16 on charges of misdemeanor trespassing on Jeremy’s property and simple assault against some of Jeremy’s workers. She faces a Monday court date on those charges.
Lisa and Terry Mayfield were married on the same day and in the same church as Jeremy and his current, wife, Shana, in 2003.
