On a November evening in Tucson, Arizona, a call came in to police reporting a shooting. Officers arrived at the scene in the 7100 block of East Speedway Boulevard to find 35-year-old Ryan Secor and his fiancée, Mary Blankenship. Mary, a 41-year-old female, had a gunshot wound to her back. She was quickly transported to Banner University Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.
Secor told investigators a harrowing story of how he and Mary had been approached by several unknown men who asked for cigarettes. He claimed that after telling them they didn't have any, he heard a loud noise and saw the men flee, only to then discover Mary had been shot.
Police began an investigation based on Secor's account, searching the area for the alleged assailants but finding no one. They did, however, recover a shell casing and a bullet from the scene. The following morning, detectives returned to the area to continue their search in the daylight. In a strange turn of events, they found Ryan Secor sleeping nearby. Upon speaking with him again, they discovered he was in possession of a handgun. The caliber of his weapon matched that of the evidence found at the crime scene.
With this new information, detectives began to question Secor's version of events. In a subsequent interview, his story unraveled. He admitted that there were no unknown men and that they had not been approached by anyone on the night of the shooting. As the interview progressed, it was determined that Secor himself had shot Mary. He claimed that the shooting had been an accident. Based on his confession, Secor was arrested and initially booked into the Pima County Jail on a charge of felony aggravated assault. Tragically, on the afternoon of November 26, 2017, Mary Blankenship succumbed to her injuries and passed away at the hospital. Following her death, the charges against Ryan Secor were amended to include second-degree murder.
