Updated: Mother-in-law charged in 'ambush' shooting of Drury employee

This story was originally published on July 8.

A Howell County businesswoman was charged Wednesday in the ambush-style shooting of her daughter-in-law — a Drury University employee — in the midst of what court records describe as "a bitter divorce."

Angaline Ryan, 58, was arrested Tuesday afternoon at the West Plains Police Department and has been charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, both felonies, in the shooting of Tammy Hathcock. Ryan is Hathcock's mother-in-law and next-door neighbor.

A probable cause statement filed in the case states Ryan initially refused to answer any questions from investigators with the Howell County Sheriff's Office and Missouri State Highway Patrol — telling them to get off her property — and then later, in multiple brief conversations with investigators, gave a series of conflicting statements.

Online court records show Hathcock and Jordan Hathcock were due to appear at a hearing in the divorce, which included child custody issues, the same week as the shooting.

Ryan was booked into the Howell County Jail on a $250,000 bond. If convicted of first-degree assault, the most serious of the charges, she could face life in prison.

A lengthy statement written by Howell County sheriff's investigator Justin Riley does not present a theory about what may have prompted the attack, but it does provide new details about what happened the afternoon of April 13 and in the months of investigation that followed.

Hathcock, director of Drury's campuses in Thayer and West Plains, was in her driveway on County Road 6300 in Howell County about 2 p.m. that Monday. Minutes later, she drove into the parking lot of the nearby Fairview School, honking frantically to summon help. School employees called 911.

The responding officers arrived to find Hathock inside a Toyota Camry, bleeding heavily from multiple gunshot wounds. Bullet holes and shattered windows were visible on the driver's side.

According to court documents, she told officers she'd been in her driveway minutes before when an unknown suspect, with a "covered face," emerged with a handgun and started shooting.

It was in those minutes, before Hathcock was taken by ambulance to a Springfield hospital for surgery, that officers received their first clue. They were told, according to Riley's report, that the breakup of the woman's marriage had turned bitter. It was not clear from Riley's report who revealed that point.

Riley and investigator H.D. Reid were the first to arrive at Hathcock's home located on a single driveway, off a county road, that splits and leads to two separate homes. The other house is where Angaline Ryan and Donnie Haynes live. The relationship between the two isn't clear from documents. Investigators collected glass as well as several shell casings from a .380-caliber Winchester handgun.

That evening, while still at Hathcock's house, investigators heard a vehicle arrive next door and went over to talk to Ryan and Haynes. According to court documents, Ryan wasn't interested in talking and "had no questions about a shooting that happened within eyeshot of her house" and asked investigators to leave because they "were disturbing her privacy."

A concrete slab, where Hathcock was parked when she was shot, is not visible from the county road or from any other house other than the one in which Ryan and Haynes live, documents say.

Ryan owns Regional Title Inc., located on Main Street in West Plains, and investigators were able to verify through surveillance footage obtained at a nearby bank that she was not at work for a two-hour stretch during which the shooting is believed to have occurred, court documents said.

Two days after the shooting, after executing a search warrant at Ryan's business, officers found a .22-caliber handgun and discovered the serial number had been removed. According to the probable cause statement, "Ryan stated the handgun had been given to her from her son, Jordan Hathcock. Ryan stated Jordan obtained it from a friend who purchased it with the intent to kill his own wife."

Hathock, 42, eventually recovered from the shooting and told investigators her husband's family was "upset about the pending divorce." At the time of the shooting, Hathcock's husband was in another state, police say. He later told investigators he "never gave any firearm to his mother."

Ryan was asked where she was at the time of the shooting. She initially told investigators she met Haynes for lunch and checked out a house, according to the probable cause statement. It also notes that, in separate phone calls, she later told investigators she and Haynes went home at lunchtime on the day of the shooting "to have sex" and then that she went home to "get a zip drive."

Court documents show Ryan told investigators she did not own a .380-caliber handgun.

Search warrants turned up a partial box of .380-caliber ammunition at Ryan's house in West Plains and .380-caliber shell casings at property she owns on Gunflint Trail in Ozark County. An analysis from the Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime lab showed the casings found in Ozark County were the same as the casings discovered at the crime scene, according to the probable cause statement.

Two people connected to Ryan, a former employee and a business associate, told investigators they previously saw Ryan with a .380-caliber handgun, the probable cause statement said. The associate told Howell County Sheriff Mike Shannon that Ryan told him she had "bought the handgun without the serial number on it to kill her husband with."

Editor's note: A previous version of this story, inaccurately described the relationship between Tammy Hathcock and Jordan Hathcock.