Cara Ryan gave at least 10 different accounts of what happened the night her ex-husband was shot to death at her Indian Rocks Beach apartment, according to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
Investigators didn't believe any of them, and on Friday, they charged the Clearwater High School teacher with second-degree murder in the death of former St. Petersburg police Sgt. John "J.J." Rush last Saturday.
Ryan was granted bond of $500,000 at her first appearance hearing Saturday morning, with the condition that she surrender her passport and wear an ankle monitor if she's released from the Pinellas County Jail.
The couple divorced in 2006, but they continued with an on-and-off relationship until recently. Rush, 45, decided last month he was ready to cut ties, so he moved out of the apartment and later took her name off a bank account they shared, Gualtieri said.
She didn't like it, according to investigators.
"Cara Ryan was acting out because she was losing control over him," Gualtieri said. "She knew she was losing control over him, and he was asserting his independence. All these different versions of events and concocted nonsense that she's come up with in the last few days are just that. .. She killed him."
Investigators say Ryan, also 45, invited Rush over that night with a sexually explicit sex message and, shortly after he arrived, she shot him. the bullet went through his left arm, and pierced his heart. He was fully clothed.
Ryan at first claimed Rush had gotten upset when she received a text message from another man and she shot him when he started raping her. But physical evidence didn't support the accusation, Gualtieri said.
Ryan later claimed she and Rush got into a argument and he left. Soon after as she lay in bed, saw the hand of an intruder and fired the .38-caliber pistol she kept by her bed, accidentally shooting Rush.
In her last version, Guatlieri said, Ryan said Rush left and came back into the apartment. He was upset, she said, so she shot him.
Ryan has been a teacher for 24 years, and she has worked at Clearwater High since 2009. She was out on personal leave all of last week.
Gualtieri said Ryan was so controlling she demanded to see receipts when Rush spent money. After he took her name off the bank account, Rush looked forward to buying his daughter a dress for a job interview without scrutiny from Ryan.
Rush worked for the St. Petersburg Police Department from 1999 to 2005, when he joined the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office as a forensic investigator. he would have celebrated his 10th anniversary on the job this week.
Friends and family remembered Rush at a memorial service Friday night as a funny, likeable guy and said he has been happier in recent weeks, saying he felt free.