JONESBORO, Ark. – Ryann Allen watched her husband die of two gunshot wounds on February 11 in Monette. It was the worst night of her life.
But since then, she’s been threatened, called a murderer, and harassed constantly by members of her husband’s family and complete strangers on the internet who have believed irresponsible reporting. Now that the investigation is closed, she is speaking out about the abuse she has endured.
The full investigation by the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office explained more about the events that happened on that tragic night. For the sake of brevity, this report is written with the assumption that the reader has reviewed the previous articles, first. Catch up here on previous related stories.
In the days following the tragedy, very little information was publicly available while authorities conducted a thorough investigation. Legitimate news outlets like K8 News, the Jonesboro Sun, and NEA Report published the available details. Our reporter pulled 911 logs through a records request. But most of the records were masked under investigative status until the case was closed this week.
That didn’t stop some from running with rumors that, in many examples, were false. A sister of the deceased, Ashley Allen, wrote numerous posts that were actually cited by irresponsible amateur reporters. She was not a witness to the events that night and, according to Ryann, had no relationship with Hunter over the last decade. Her posts were filled with falsehoods and appeals to emotion, which worked on more than a few. However, because she was genuinely grieving, all of the replies seemed to hold her to no standard of accuracy.
Here are some of the falsehoods in her posts:
- Ryann set up a GoFundMe. This is false. There was never a fundraiser set up by Ryann. One of her friends did organize a meal-train type page to help coordinate with others to bring food to the family.
- Hunter’s brother convinced him to unload his gun. This is false. The brother told police he had taken the gun but authorities pressed him on how Hunter had the gun, again, when the wife arrived. The brother then said Hunter, somehow, had gotten the gun back. Ryann took the gun from him when she arrived and her brother unloaded it.
- Hunter had sobered up. This is false. Hunter was holding an alcoholic beverage in his hand when Ryann arrived, she said. When she went to take it from him, that’s when he became violent, again.
- Hunter had life insurance. This is false.
- Hunter and Ryann were building a new house. This is false. They were buying a new house.
- Ryann bought a new car. This is false. Ryann hoped to trade in her SUV that Hunter had driven. It reminded her too much of him. However, a yet-unknown person took photos of her at the Central Dealership and then sent them to the angry sister. They were used to attack her.
There were many other examples like this in the posts, which began with the conclusion that a premeditated murder scheme was hatched by Ryann and her brother, Brett Williams, an off-duty officer with the Trumann Police Department. There has been no evidence to support this conclusion.
The problem was, many didn’t bother looking for evidence. They took her conclusion as fact and repeated it as their own.
One of the people who spread the false claims was Abby Blabby on Tik-Tok (@abbylynn0715). She has over 350,000 followers and her video about Hunter Allen has over 1.2 million views as of this publication. In her video, she read NEA Report’s article word-for-word without citing it (unethical). She drew the conclusion that it was a murder, even replying in the comments saying as much. As of this publication, she also has not updated the case to inform the public of the results of the investigation.
NEA Report reached out to her and asked her if she felt responsible for the harassment that Ryann has endured as a direct result of her objectively bad reporting. Abby read the message but didn’t respond. After our article was published, she reached out and apologized for using our work without credit. She also plans to update her followers with a new video about the story.
Another Tik-Tok influencer who was responsible for the spread of false allegations was True Crime Mama, who has over 200,000 followers. In similar fashion to the previous influencer, she also read NEA Report’s original reporting without credit. She did not include any citations, except when she cited Ashley Allen’s post and included it at the end of her video. However, unlike the previous Tik-Toker, she did include an updated video about the case after authorities concluded the investigation.
NEA Report contacted her for comment. A short time later, the videos were removed and we were blocked. After our initial story was published, she messaged this reporter and apologized for reading the articles without giving credit. We accepted her apology. She also pledged to tell Ryann’s story to her followers and expressed serious regret at any negativity she may have influenced in giving an audience to the sister’s false claims. Her response was respectful and admirable.
Ryann’s Story
In addition to having falsehoods repeated about her, Ryann has also been peppered with questions from strangers who feel entitled to a personal explanation about the death of her husband that night. While grieving, she was able to speak to a reporter for several hours as we learned more about what happened.
The night of the incident was the first time Hunter Allen had ever laid a hand on Ryann, she told NEA Report. He had never been physically violent with her before. She did acknowledge he had a temper that flared when drinking, but she never expected it to turn into physical violence.
“It was very sudden,” Ryann said. “It just came out of nowhere. It took me by surprise because I never would have thought he would hit me. When the laceration happened, I thought about calling the cops just to handle the situation and save him, but we had been doing a custody battle involving his son and I did not want that to be something they could use against him, since this was the first time it had happened. I didn’t want this one bad night to be held against him.”
On video, without provocation and while holding a child, Hunter shoves Ryann down incredibly hard. It was one of several attacks that night, she said. Her head was split open from making contact with the vehicle so hard. Hunter left, and the kids were upstairs when Ryann called her mom to come look at her injury. Ryann’s mom called one of her sons, who in turn called her other son, Brett Williams, an officer with the Trumann Police Department.
Ryann’s family arrived. Her mom had to cut extensions out of her hair to see the wound. Ryann said she got in the shower to wash off the blood. But she was still communicating by text with Hunter.
“He sends me the text that sounds like he is about to commit suicide,” Ryann said. “Shawna is saying he is talking to her about suicide and I need to find him and go get him.”
At 8:51 PM, Hunter wrote to Ryann, “I hope the boys grow up strong and I hope the girls grow up independent. Tell them all I love them with every part of me. I’m sorry we couldn’t sort things out. I just want you to know your [sic] the only person I’ve ever loved with all my heart.” Ryann replied five times, pleading with him to stop and telling him he’s just drunk. He never responded.
Ryann decided she had to go get Hunter, who was in an extremely depressed state. She was concussed, so she said she wanted her brother to drive. Because they were retrieving Ryann’s vehicle, which Hunter had been driving, her mom came along to drive one of the vehicles safely home, too.
“As I walk in, Cameron gives him this weird handshake and says, ‘I’ll be seeing you around,’” Ryann said. “And when Hunter looked at me, the look he had in his eyes looked like he wasn’t just drunk. Cameron says he’s going to leave and he does.”
Ryann retrieved his firearm and gave it to her brother, who unloaded it.
“Hunter still has two beers in his hands,” Ryann said. “I tell him to give me the beer. I told him to give me the other beer. He said no. I reached around to get the beer, and he punched me twice in the face.”
Her brother tackled Hunter at this point and was able to get one wrist handcuffed. Later, during his interrogation, Williams said he wanted to stop Hunter from hurting anyone else or himself. But Williams was never able to get him completely handcuffed and Hunter fought with “super-human strength,” Ryann said.
“I’ve never seen him this strong,” Ryann said. “My brother should have easily been able to take him down but he couldn’t. You just couldn’t wear him down.”
Williams gave up on the handcuffs. Video shows he tried to back off of Hunter but Hunter kicked at him and then charged him. They hit a lamp, shattering it, tripping a breaker and killing the power to the entire home. The power was restored a short time after.
Ryann sent her mom outside to start up one of the vehicles. At the same time, the fight was escalating between Hunter and Williams, with Hunter telling him multiple times he was going to kill him. Williams was pushed out of the home with his sister, Ryann, still inside. Williams called 911 – but because the vehicle had been started, it repeatedly connected to Bluetooth inside of the truck and the dispatcher couldn’t hear the caller.
Some time after, Hunter rushed out the front door, attacking Williams yet again. Williams drew his firearm and held Hunter at gunpoint, but the attacks did not stop. Hunter threw several items at him, including a metal chair and a porch swing. Williams retreated into the yard and Hunter pursued him. Williams fired two quick gunshots at the center mass of the attacker charging him. Hunter immediately dropped to his side.
Ryann rushed to him and rolled him over. She held his hand, looked for something to try to stop the bleeding, and began to apply pressure. Hunter’s mother was also outside, hysterical. Responders arrived, identified the Trumann officer, and immediately began life-saving measures on Hunter. Williams was placed in a patrol unit as standard protocol.
At one point, Ryann was instructed to hold the flashlight on the deputies. Eventually, as more responders arrived, they took the family inside to avoid exposing them to the traumatic scene. However, Ryann stood at the door and continued to talk to Hunter, who can be heard saying “Babe,” to her several times. Responders told him to keep talking to her. But, Hunter was dying and he knew it. Tragically, he passed away.
Ryann had been moved inside of the home but inside, Hunter’s mother and step-father were fighting to the degree that deputies had to leave Hunter’s side and go inside to tell them to stop. Ryann understandably wanted out of the house and a deputy took her to his patrol unit.
“I sat there for a good while,” Ryann said. “I was probably in there for an hour. I didn’t know Hunter had already passed away. They marked it off as a crime scene and so I didn’t know quite what was going on, but I was in shock.”
When a deputy told Ryann that Hunter had passed away, she screamed like she had never screamed before, she said. She became physically sick, too, vomiting almost immediately after. Body-worn camera footage showed responders notifying Hunter’s mother, too, who collapsed on the floor and screamed.
Ryann didn’t get back home to her family until 7 AM. The couple had six children, some prior to meeting each other. Hunter’s 9-year old step-daughter asked what happened and Ryann told her he had been in an accident. She said the young girl was broken to pieces, asking repeatedly what if it wasn’t Hunter and was just someone who looked like him.
As difficult as it was to explain to her what had happened, it was even more difficult for Ryann to tell her 5-year old an answer when he asked, “Why was Hunter hitting you?” Ryann does not want her children to have the perception that Hunter was physically abusive because, before that night, she said he wasn’t.
“I wish the bruises and stuff would heal. [Our child] asked if that was the bruise Hunter caused and I don’t know how to answer it,” Ryann said.
They began grief counseling this week.
Grief
Overcome with grief, Ryann tried to reach out to Hunter’s family to express her remorse and regret. She said she texted his sister, Shawna, telling her she wished she could go back and do things differently, but she never received a response.
Right after that, the hate started coming when “True Crime Mama” posted her first video, which included the accusations of a murder plot made by family.
“People were coming to my profile, my business page, calling me a murderer, telling me he was trying to leave me and I wouldn’t leave him alone, that I should rot in hell,” Ryann said. “There were fake profiles and real profiles.”
The Tik-Tok videos gave the impression that Ryann was a vengeful wife who had called her brother and forged a plot to murder her husband. The actual events she described, which investigators found to be credible, were of a wife trying to save her husband from himself.
“That part really got to me,” Ryann said. “I messaged her and said, ‘You do not know the story. You’re getting the story from one person who wasn’t even there.’ Shawna had changed her story that she had never told me to come get him. [True Crime Mama] asked me if I wanted her to tell my side of the story. I said no.”
But while Ryann planned to remain quiet, the online hate mob was determined to force her to talk about it. People accused her of not speaking because she was guilty. For whatever reason, completely unrelated people felt entitled to an explanation because they had been made emotional by a Tik-Tok video.
Ryann responded several times. Of course, her detractors have blamed her for that, too. The theme in the attacks is that nothing she does is right. It’s cruel, torturous, and seems to be the furthest thing from what Hunter Allen would have wanted.
“It’s making me question, did I do the right thing?” Ryann said. “Should I have left him? But then, it’s like, what if I left him, and he did kill himself, then they would still blame me and say you didn’t go help him. It’s like I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
Sometimes, I feel like I should have left him alone, but then he would have killed himself. And I would feel guilty again for not going to save my husband.
Ryann said Hunter had regret in his eyes immediately after he gashed her head open. She knew him so well, they could finish each other’s sentences. She said he must have thought there was no coming back from that for their relationship, which left him in despair. She said she doesn’t think he planned to come back, ever. And when she found out he went to his mom’s, she said she instantly knew what he was going to do.
“We’d had this conversation,” Ryann candidly shared. “I got him into therapy and I’m the one who told him he needed to speak to someone about [these thoughts]. He had told me if he ever ended up at his mom’s or just over there by himself, to come get him. So, I did. I listened to what he told me and I went and tried to get him. I just think I was too late once Cameron was there.”
Hunter’s brother, Cameron Cole, made several appearances in the police report. He told investigators he thought Hunter was okay and he left the residence after Ryann, Williams, and their mom arrived. He returned after the shooting and refused to follow commands from deputies. He was placed into handcuffs, with body cam footage showing officers considered charging him with Obstruction of Justice. Showing compassion, the officers decided to release him. When they did, he glared in the face of a deputy for several seconds before walking off.
Ryann believes Hunter may have been given drugs at the house in Monette before she arrived. She mentioned alleged drug issues with several members of Hunter’s family. A toxicology report is pending with the Arkansas State Crime Lab, which could provide conclusive answers to this question.
Pain and Healing
“In my head, I have the feelings of so many things I wish I could go back and do differently,” Ryann said. “But then, I ask what if he had killed himself, or done something else. It’s a lot of guilt that I carry around. I don’t know how to move forward. And the people sending hateful messages and calling me a murderer and piece of trash, they’re saying exactly how I feel.” Ryann began crying as she finished this sentence.
Much of the harassment has subsided since the investigation was closed, records were released, and accurate reporting was done on the matter. But there are still efforts being made to hurt her. Ryann was upset after learning that Hunter’s family had put out their own obituary, leaving her and her children out. Texts between the couple provided to a reporter show Hunter considered them his children, too. Ryann believes this was done solely to hurt her.
“If Hunter could hear the things these people are saying, he would shut them down and never let them in our life again,” Ryann said. His true friends knew what he was going through and they have supported me and told me if I ever need anything, to call them.”
Now, Ryann must lean on her friends and faith to find healing and comfort, while at the same time, keeping strong for her children.
Ryann said she and Hunter always texted each other when they would see repeated numbers, like 111, 222, etc. So, as she was looking for her wedding vows, she found them tucked away in her Bible, next to Exodus 22:22. She said she felt like God and Hunter both were wrapped around her at that moment.
“Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.” – Exodus 22:22
