Sex, Jealously... And Murder?

John ‘JJ’ Rush, 45, was a retired police sergeant. Cara Ryan, 45, a respected teacher at the local high school.

- Lianne La Borde

They’d married in 1996 and divorced nine years later.

But their split didn’t last long.

By 2007, they’d rekindled things and had an on-off relationship until February 2015.

It was JJ who’d finally called it off and moved out.

But a month later, a frantic Cara made a call to the emergency services.

‘My ex-husband came in, and he raped me,’ she told the operator.

So she’d shot him in self-defence – or so she claimed.

Injured JJ stumbled to a neighbour’s for help, but collapsed and died on their front porch.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation. When questioned, Cara claimed JJ had become angry when he discovered that she was sexting another man. 

JJ had pinned her down, threatened to kill her and raped her. So Cara shot him with a .38-caliber pistol he’d bought her years before. Friends and family were stunned.

JJ had worked for the St Petersburg Police, in the Forensic Unit, until suffering an injury in an on-duty car crash in 2005.

Afterwards, he’d gone to work for the County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Colleagues described him as ‘well-liked’.

And the murder investigators weren’t convinced by Cara’s account.

A week later, she was charged with second degree murder.

She faced a life sentence if convicted of the killing. 

The Pinellas County Sheriff said that Cara had changed her story more than 10 times since shooting her ex-husband dead.