INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) - A suburban Kansas City man has been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife over the weekend, police in Independence said.
Ryan Smith, 41, is also charged with armed criminal action following the Sunday shooting. Officers were called to Smith’s home Sunday night, and arriving officers found Smith leaving the home in a black Jeep, police said. As the Jeep was backing out of the driveway, police said another man at the home yelled, “That man shot my mom!”
Officers found 52-year-old Daina Smith dead from a gunshot wound inside the home.
Smith initially refused to pull over, but eventually stopped and was arrested. He first told officers that his wife had been shot by a stranger, then later said she had killed herself, police said in court documents.
One of the woman’s sons told police Ryan Smith had called him Sunday and said he had shot his wife. Daina Smith’s family members told police she had threatened to divorce him if he did not quit drinking.
Court records show Ryan Smith was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon and sentenced to probation in 2007, and that Daina Smith was the victim in that case.
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