HOW THE EVIDENCE PILED UP AGAINST SHAYNA HUBERS IN THE MURDER OF RYAN POSTON

Shayna Hubers alleged she was in an abusive relationship, but two juries found her guilty of killing her boyfriend Ryan Poston in cold blood.

Ryan Carter Poston was at home in Highland Heights, Ky., getting ready to go out for drinks with the reigning Miss Ohio, Audrey Bolte, on Oct. 12, 2012.

When the 29-year-old lawyer failed to show up for what was supposed to be their first date after months of online chatting and texting, Audrey eventually just went home and never heard from him again.

It turned out that Ryan was dead, shot six times by his on-and-off girlfriend of 18 months, Shayna Hubers.

"Ryan was as bright as he was kind and as principled as he was caring," read a statement released by his family the next day. "His passing is an unspeakable hardship to so many people. We ask that all of Ryan's family and friends as well as our community to keep Ryan and those who loved him in their thoughts and prayers. We want to make it clear that Ryan was trying to end this relationship; he was trying to move on with his life. Tragically, his life was taken from him. Justice must now be served."

In this case, there was no question of who had pulled the trigger.

Shayna was the one who called 911 to report a shooting, and she was still at Ryan's apartment when police arrived. After just a few hours in custody, the 21 year-old was charged with murder.

"I knew he was gonna die or have a completely deformed face," she said that night, per video from the police interrogation room. "He's very vain. One of our last conversations we had that was good was that he wants to get a nose job. And I shot him right here. I gave him his nose job he wanted."

Shayna was recorded saying a lot of things in that room, including unprompted comments such as, "I don't know if anyone will ever want to marry me if they know that I killed a boyfriend in self-defense-not funny." She also sang "Amazing Grace," and at one point danced around the room, singing and snapping her fingers, "I did it! Yes, I did

And so the question of why became the real mystery.

A Rough Relationship

Ryan met Shayna through Facebook in March 2011, compelled to send a friend request after admiring a photo of the then-19-year-old in a bikini taken during spring break in Daytona Beach, Fla., according to court testimony from her July 2015 sentencing hearing. They met in person and started dating, photos they shared on social media showing your average young couple.

"I would say I was a very fun college kid," Shayna, who graduated from University of Kentucky with her bachelor's degree in the spring of 2012, later told WCOP 9 News in a jailhouse interview.

According to Ryan's friends and family from their trial testimony and media interviews, he was on the rebound after the end of a long relationship with Lauren Worley, and he started to lose interest in Shayna fairly early on but never fully broke it off.

"He just wasn't able to," his friend Tom Awadalla said on ABC News' 20/20 in 2015. "He was too nice, didn't want to hurt her feelings."

Another pal, Matt Herren, described Ryan to CBS News' 48 Hours in 2014 as "the type of person that you want in your life. Not just a friend, but a loving son, a protective, adoring older brother."

But Shayna, a graduate student at Eastern Kentucky University who wanted to be a guidance counselor, insisted that being "too nice" wasn't Ryan's problem.. She alleged that he was a controlling. abusive boyfriend who kept loaded guns in the house.

Ryan's neighbor Nikki Carnes told 48 Hours that from, what she heard from Shayna, she believed that Ryan was "playing mind games" with his girlfriend.

"She would always tell me that he would say she needed a boob job or a face lift and that she was fat, she needed to lose some weight," Nikki said. But "she always told me she loved him. She picked up his laundry, she did his laundry, she took his dog out, she went and bought him food. She did everything for him."

Sharon Hubers, Shayna's mother, told CBS News, "She's far from evil. Shayna has a heart of gold. She's like her mommy...a loving spirit. That's what I want the world to know."

Disturbing Behavior

People close to Ryan maintained that Shayna was the one who had issues, his ex-girlfriend Lauren Worley telling 20/20, "She used to go places asking everyone if they knew me and if they thought I was prettier than her. It was like she had an obsession, beyond Ryan."

Lauren and Ryan had previously lived together and, she said, "we broke up always thinking in the back of my mind, at least that we would end up back together." She still had the two dogs they acquired as a couple, Lily and Max.

Ryan's friend Allie Wagner told 48 Hours of Shayna, "I think she had a goal, in the beginning, to make him settle down with her. And when she wasn't becoming successful, that became a problem." Allie read a Facebook message Ryan sent her: "Literally probably the craziest f-king person I have ever met. She almost scares me."

Ryan also texted a cousin, "This is getting to be restraining order level crazy...She's shown up at my condo like 3 times and refuses to leave each time."

Meanwhile, Shayna was chronicling her own spiraling feelings in texts to friends.

"He says he is only with me bc I make him feel so awful when I cry," Shayna wrote to one, per messages reported on by 20/20. "My love has turned to hate."

To another pal she wrote a few weeks before Ryan's death, per 20/20, "When I go to the shooting range with Ryan tonight I want to turn around and shoot and kill him and play like (it's) an accident."

Toxic Texting

Ryan had messaged Shayna back in February 2012, eight months before he was killed, "You can tell people you broke up with me," according to texts reported on by 48 Hours. She resisted, replying that she loved him, "Far more than you deserve."

In March, the report continued, he pleaded with her to "STOP texting me." Then in April, "I NO LONGER HAVE THE PATIENCE TO DEAL WITH YOU."

Campbell County Commonwealth's Attorney Michelle Snodgrass, who prosecuted the case, told 48 Hours that investigators found "hundreds of thousands of messages. And most of the messages were from Shayna. For every one message Ryan sent, she probably sent 50. She couldn't stop herself."

Friend and fellow attorney Ken Hawley

remembered Shayna texting Ryan "50 to 100 times a day. She would just wear him down and exhaust him to the point where he would say, "OK, Shayna.'...He kept doing the easy thing, which was staying with her."

Ryan's ex Lauren told 20/20, "I was right there. I wish I would have known or paid attention, because I might have been able to stop it." Multiple friends also told 48 Hours they wish they had more forcefully encouraged Ryan to end the relationship for good.

"I knew she was a stalker," Ken said. "I thought she was perfectly capable of causing a scene. But murder?"

The Killing

Despite the heated messages, Ryan and Shayna were back together by the summer, yet on the outs again in late August, when Ryan texted her "I'm turning off the phone and padlocking the door." Discussing the import of these messages with Highland Heights Police Chief Bill Birkenhauer, 48 Hours' Peter Van Sant said that Shayna then sent Ryan at least 100 messages over the next nine hours until Ryan replied, "I'm not reading any of these. Stop."

Asked what that said about her behavior, Birkenhauer replied, "This message goes back to, she's obsessed with Ryan Poston."

But Shayna still had a key to Ryan's condo, and on the night of Oct. 11, the pair spent time at Shayna's mother and stepfather's house and then she slept at his place, according to her mom, Sharon Hubers.

"I don't know if it was part of Ryan's attempt to let her down easy. I just don't know," Sharon later testified when asked If that sounded like the behavior of someone about to break up with his girlfriend.

When she called 911 at around 9 p.m. on Oct. 12, Shayna told the operator, per the recording of the call, "I killed my boyfriend in self-defense." Probed for more details, she continued, "He beat me and tried to carry me out of the house and I came back in to get my things and he was right in front of me and he reached down and grabbed the gun, and I grabbed it out of his hand and pulled the trigger."

Asked how long ago that had happened, she said, "10, 15 minutes...not even that long."

Sharon Hubers later testified that Shayna actually called her first, sounding "hysterical, terrified, in shock." She said she told her daughter to call 911 and "tell them where you are and exactly what happened."

Police took Shayna into custody and after being read her rights she asked for a lawyer-but, as video of the exchange showed, she proceeded to talk anyway without being questioned. Several officers traded off sitting with her.

"If I had to go to jail, can you shower there? Or do you just get really dirty?"

Shayna asked one cop.

At another point, she said, "He's pulled guns on me as jokes before...And I shot him in self-defense because he's done stuff before where I've hit my head on a headboard... and could've died!"

But later in her mostly one-sided conversation, she told an officer that Ryan had been yelling at her, calling her a "f--king hillbilly," and then she "just picked up the gun" that was sitting on his dining table. "And in the middle of him doin' somethin' with his arm or saying somethin' crazy, I shot him."

He was "twitching," she recalled, so "I shot him a couple of more times just to make sure he was dead 'cause I didn't wanna watch him die."

The Trial

Shayna testified at a 2014 bail hearing that she stuck with Ryan because he "was going through a lot, and he needed moral support. And I was always good to him." She was upfront to the police about shooting him, she explained, because "I believed in my innocence. And I wanted to see my mother and go home."

She had been locked up since her arrest

in October 2012, bail having initially been

denied. It was set at $1.5 million after this hearing but Shayna's family was unable to come up with that amount and she remained in jail throughout the proceedings.

Her murder trial in Campbell County Circuit Court began in April 2015. Shayna pleaded not guilty by reason of self defense.

The prosecution argued that she was an obsessed stalker who was unable to accept that Ryan didn't want to see her anymore and shot him in cold blood, the date he was supposed to go on with a beauty queen that night the final straw.

Cecily Miller, one of Shayna's cellmates, testified that the accused had sounded pretty "carefree" when she talked about the shooting, and laughed when she recalled "giving him the nose job he always wanted."

Cecily also shared her memories of bunking with Shayna on

Lifetime's Cellmate Secrets last year, as did fellow inmate Holly Nivens, who testified during the 2015 trial that Shayna told her that bruises she'd shown to Ryan's neighbor, Nikki Carnes, were actually self-inflicted.

"She would purposely, like, pull her arms up so the neighbors would see bruises on her arms," Holly said in court.

Holly said on Cellmate Secrets that Shayna took notes on the twists and turns in the Jodi Arias murder case,

which was "a big thing" at the time. Jodi was accused of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2008 and, after initially making up wildly opposing stories, claimed self-defense, saying Travis had been abusive. She's serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.

"She was so wrapped up in her case," Holly said of Shayna, "comparing herself with Jodi Arias."

At trial the defense maintained that Shayna feared for her life, that Ryan was in a rage on Oct. 12, 2012, and pushing her around the room. And after she shot him once, she kept shooting out of fear he'd get up and kill her.

Shayna's friend Christina Keeling, a nurse, testified, "She's a very sweet, gentle, happy person. She's not this horrible person she's been portrayed as."

The Verdict

But after barely five hours of deliberation, a jury found Shayna guilty of murder on April 25, 2015. They recommended 40 years in prison-a sentence Ryan's ex Lauren found far too lenient.

"Maybe it's traditional, old-school mentality," she told 20/20, "but if you kill someone, then you know, it's eye for an eye. And what you do unto others should be done unto you." (Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.)

Ryan's mother, Lisa Carter, called the verdict a "shallow victory."

During her sentencing hearing, held in part to determine whether she was a victim of domestic violence and therefore could be eligible for parole after eight years, Shayna told the judge, "I feel like I was led on. I feel like I was manipulated, used and abused. And no, Ryan didn't beat on me every day...I'm not gonna sit up here and exaggerate and lie and say that he did. But he did put hands on me a handful of times."

Before she was sentenced, Shayna stated in court that she was "sorry to my family. And I'm sorry to my friends for letting them down. And I'm sorry for the money that my parents had to spend on attorneys." She didn't mention Ryan.

Judge Fred Stine gave her 40 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20. saving that Ryan's murder was "probably as cold-blooded an act as I've been associated within the criminal justice system in the 30-plus years I've been in it."

That wasn't the end of the story, though. In 2016 Shayna won a new trial on appeal when it turned out that there was a juror who failed to disclose a felony conviction, which in the state of Kentucky should have prevented the person from serving on the panel.

"If we have to do this a hundred times we will do it a hundred times," Jay Poston, Ryan's dad, told 48 Hours as the family steeled themselves to hear the dueling stories all over again. "It will all be OK. We believe strongly that the evidence is overwhelming and we believe justice will still be served."

Shayna Speaks Out

Breaking her silence to WCPO 9 News in May 2018, ahead of her second trial, Shayna said in a jailhouse interview (which she requested to discuss her intent to marry a fellow inmate; they did and have since divorced) that she felt she'd been "treated unfairly" by the Campbell County justice system and she believe that, and I do believe that there's been incredibly negative media coverage about me in Cincinnati, and in the United States, and internationally."

Some people could see her as "crying wolf," Shayna said in response to a question about whether the #MeToo movement, which had gained serious steam since her first trial, could possibly help her when it came to the public response to her story. "It could be negative, but it could also be positive because it's raising awareness [about abuse], that this happens all the time. It often happens in situations where no one would expect it to happen."

Asked if she felt regret or remorse particularly with regard to Ryan's family, she said, "I'm not here to talk about any of that."

McKee asked if Ryan's family had ever written to her, to which she replied, "Not that I'm aware of," nor had she ever written to any of them.

Shayna said she got a "fair amount" of mail from strangers expressing their support, generally more whenever her case was in the news, and "often times" she wrote back.

Asked for a second time if there was anything she regretted from 2012, she again said, "I'm not here to talk about 2012, I'm here to talk about today."

The Second Defense

When the retrial got underway in 2018, Shayna's new lawyer, David Eldridge, altered her defense "to focus more on the extreme emotional disturbance" she had suffered from Ryan's alleged physical and emotional abuse, Eldridge explained on a December 2020 episode of

A&E's Killer Cases.

"Our position at trial was that [Ryan] was sending a lot of mixed signals as to what