Country singer Allison Moorer opens up about her parents' murder-suicide

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Country artist Allison Moorer has spent decades trying to come to terms with the loss of her parents, who died in a murder-suicide when she was a teenager.

It was 1986 when Moorer's father murdered her mother before turning the gun on himself. Lynn Moorer had only recently found the strength to leave her abusive, alcoholic husband, who continuously assaulted not only his wife but also their daughters. She relocated with the girls to the rental home where she would soon be killed.

Moorer, then 14, and and her older sister, then 17, heard the shots before discovering the bodies on their front lawn.

"Every record I've ever made has got some song on it that has something to do with this, something to do with my parents," Moorer told CBS This Morning of her decades-long music career.

Moorer says she has strived to find it within herself to forgive her late father: "I needed to [forgive him] so that I could be happy," she said. Today, she has "nothing but love" for him.

The singer documents her gut-wrenching process of heartbreak and healing in a new memoir, Blood, which has already become an Amazon No. 1 Best Seller.

During her sit-down with CBS, she discussed how she plans to eventually explain to her autistic son why his grandparents have never been in his life. She'll tell him "that his grandparents were troubled and beautiful, like we all are," she said.

Moorer's debut single, "A Soft Place to Fall," appeared on the Billboard Country Chart and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999. She was also nominated for a Grammy in 2008.