John “J.J.” Rush, a former patrol officer with the St. Petersburg Police Department, was fatally shot in an Indian Rocks Beach apartment in Florida in March 2015. The incident is detailed in NBC’s “Dateline: A Shot in the Dark.” Although there was no question as to who carried out the purported murder, the torture was intended to establish the motives of the putative perpetrator. We’ve got your back if you want to learn more about the case. So let’s get started, shall we?
How Did John “J.J.” Rush Die?
In the forensic division of the Florida coastal city of St. Petersburg Police Department, John “J.J.” Rush worked. In 1996, he wed Cara Ryan, a teacher of media production at a Florida high school. They allegedly met when the former visited her class to assist the pupils with a class project. John and Cara came to the realisation that they had been friends since they were little. After a brief courtship, they were married in 1996, with Meghan Rush, John’s ex-wife’s daughter, serving as the flower girl.
“She (Meghan) was icing on the cake,” Cara recalled. I was overjoyed to find a man with a young girl. However, the union did not endure long, and about eight years later, a major obstacle presented itself. In the episode, Cara reportedly admitted to having an affair with her school’s former principal. She claimed that John held himself responsible for the affair and their subsequent breakup since he felt he failed to support her at the time. Additionally, Cara claimed that during the year of their divorce, he sought her nonstop.
John, meantime, met with an unfortunate mishap that caused him to leave the police department. In 2005, he was hurt in a car accident while on the job and was in too much agony to do his patrol officer duties. After that, John started working as an investigator for the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office. After divorcing in 2006, he and Cara did not stay apart for very long before getting back together. She revealed that after breaking up with a previous boyfriend, they had a fortuitous encounter on a Florida beach.
Within two days following their chance encounter, Cara remembered that John was in the driveway of her apartment block at Indian Rocks Beach. Although they didn’t get remarried, she claimed he wanted to start seeing her again. But their bond quickly deteriorated, and on February 15, 2015, John decided to call it quits. Cara was shocked when he informed her he needed some space because he had recently turned 45. The programme said that John had moved out in late February 2015 after meeting Lonnie Lancto, a police sergeant.
After his relationship with Cara came to an end, John apparently grew close to Lonnie, with whom he had been acquainted for a long time. After her split from the police officer, she also moved on and began seeing Scott Holderbaum, a detention deputy. When tragedy struck, it appeared that their on-and-off romance of almost 20 years had come to an end. On March 7, 2015, at 10:17 PM, Cara dialled 911 and informed the operator that John had sexually assaulted her and as a result, she had shot him.
Who Killed John “J.J.” Rush?
When detectives got at Cara’s Indian Rocks Beach around 10:30 p.m., they discovered John’s body lying in front of her neighbor’s door. Around 10:05 PM, she allegedly was in bed at her house two blocks from the beach. When she heard dogs barking and footsteps outside, Cara was by herself. She gripped at her, thinking there was a burglar in the house.John gave her a 38-caliber revolver years ago, and she pointed it at the supposed intruder. She was astonished to learn that it was her ex-husband, though.
A fatally wounded John fell and passed away in front of the neighbor’s doorstep, who was hesitant to approach the front door for fear of hearing additional gunshots. His autopsy revealed that the bullet penetrated his left arm before moving into his chest. Sergeant Joe Pratt, a coworker of John’s, expressed his shock at the fact that his friend, who had survived a hazardous profession, ended up dying at home. But over the course of the next few days, the narrative would change repeatedly, going from an accident to a self-defense manoeuvre.
Cara was detained and placed into a patrol car after the police came, and there she informed one of the deputies that she needed medical help. The police released her from her handcuffs and took her to their main office, where they scheduled an examination at a rape crisis centre. However, the reports remained ambiguous, and that is when Cara revised her account. She acknowledged that she had sent John a sexually suggestive message asking him to her home for purported “breakup sex.”
John apparently lost his cool after he saw a text from Cara’s boyfriend, Scott, on her phone while they were having a private moment. He allegedly turned angry, called her derogatory names, and sexually abused her while shaming her, according to the episode. As he rushed out of the house, he allegedly even threatened to kill her and Scott. Cara called John and apologised, saying she and Scott had nothing serious going on and that she was worried John might do something severe. A short while later, she heard John storming up the stairs and slamming the door behind him.
Cara admitted that she knew who the intruder was and that she fatally shot his ex-husband out of fear that he would hurt him. She was charged with second-degree murder at the age of 45, and her initial bond was set at $500,000. She might have been given a life sentence if proven guilty, but the judge later reduced the bond amount by half. The trial for Cara began in January 2017. She was allegedly so domineering, according to the prosecution, that John was forbidden from having a bank account and had to deposit all of his wages into one of her controlled accounts.
Cara allegedly feared losing control after John removed her from his bank account two days prior to the suspected murder, according to the prosecution. On the other hand, her defence attorney claimed that she shot the man in self-defense because she believed he was out of control owing to an apparent oxycodone addiction and anger management problems. Cara was ultimately found not guilty on all charges after the jury found that the prosecution could not prove her crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
