Rebecca Mryglod pleaded guilty to first-degree domestic battery nearly two years after Kevin Altom survived 17 gunshot wounds.

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. — An Arkansas woman who admitted shooting her former boyfriend repeatedly at a Drasco home has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison after resolving a case that began with an attempted-murder allegation and several other felony accusations.

Rebecca Jane Mryglod, 38, pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to first-degree domestic battery in Cleburne County Circuit Court. Sixteenth Judicial Circuit Judge Tim Weaver imposed a 240-month sentence in the Arkansas Division of Correction and gave Mryglod credit for 648 days she had already spent in custody. The negotiated plea brought the criminal case stemming from the Nov. 8, 2024, shooting of Kevin Altom to a close at the trial-court level. Local court reporting said additional counts were dropped as part of the agreement.

The sentence represents the upper end of the ordinary punishment range for a Class B felony under Arkansas law. First-degree domestic battery generally is classified as a Class B felony, although the statute provides for more serious classifications in certain circumstances. Arkansas law sets a prison range of five to 20 years for a Class B felony. Court reporting in Mryglod’s case identified the offense to which she pleaded guilty as first-degree domestic battery and said Weaver sentenced her to the full 20 years allowed within that range.

The case began nearly two years earlier on Altom Road in Drasco, a small community in Cleburne County. Sheriff’s deputies responded after a shooting was reported at the home where Mryglod and Altom were staying. Investigative records described Altom as suffering from numerous gunshot wounds when emergency crews arrived. He was taken for emergency medical treatment and was reported in critical condition. Later accounts based on case records said he survived 17 wounds and required extensive medical care, including surgery after one bullet injured his colon and led to an infection.

Investigators said Mryglod remained at the scene and acknowledged that she had shot Altom. Reports based on the sheriff’s incident records said she was outside the house crying and breathing rapidly while repeatedly asking whether he was going to die. She had blood on her hands and clothing, according to investigators. Authorities said she called 911 after the shooting and told dispatchers that she had shot someone. Deputies located a .22-caliber handgun in weeds down the driveway from the house.

The physical evidence recovered around the property became part of the account investigators assembled. Authorities said the handgun had an empty magazine and its slide was locked open when it was found. Six spent cartridge casings were reported inside the residence, along with containers of marijuana. Investigators also reported finding additional .22-caliber ammunition and hearing protection in Mryglod’s possession. The marijuana discovery helped form the basis for a separate allegation involving drugs and a firearm, one of the counts that did not remain after the plea agreement.

During a custodial interview, Mryglod gave detectives an account of the hours leading to the shooting. She said she had bought the .22-caliber pistol three days earlier and had practiced shooting it. According to the arrest affidavit, she told investigators that she and Altom had separated but that she had moved back into the home to help him with what she described as his “spiritual demons.” Court documents did not establish a medical or clinical meaning for that phrase, and investigators reported it as Mryglod’s own description of the situation between them.

Mryglod told detectives she got up at about 5 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 8, retrieved the pistol and ammunition from her vehicle and then continued her morning activities. She said she put her daughter on a school bus before returning inside. Altom was on a couch, according to her account. She asked whether he was going to work. As he got up, Mryglod said, she pointed the gun toward him and began firing. The affidavit attributed to her a statement that she no longer wanted to continue helping him with what she viewed as his spiritual struggles.

That interview helped shape the original criminal case. Mryglod was arrested after the shooting and was initially accused of offenses that included attempted first-degree murder, first-degree domestic battery and simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms. Sheriff’s booking information from November 2024 reflected serious felony allegations and a $700,000 bond. Those arrest allegations did not themselves constitute convictions. The case remained pending while Mryglod stayed in custody, accounting for the 648 days of jail credit recorded when she was ultimately sentenced.

By the time the case was resolved in August 2026, prosecutors and the defense had reached a negotiated disposition rather than taking the original group of allegations to trial. Local reporting on the sentencing order said the plea resulted in a first-degree domestic-battery conviction while another domestic-battery charge and the simultaneous-possession charge were nolle prossed, meaning prosecutors did not continue with them. Reports also described the attempted-murder allegation as having been replaced or reduced in connection with the negotiated first-degree domestic-battery plea.

The distinction matters because a negotiated guilty plea resolves the offense specified in the final judgment rather than every allegation listed at arrest. The 20-year sentence therefore rests on Mryglod’s conviction for first-degree domestic battery. The original attempted-murder and firearm-and-drug allegations remain part of the procedural history, but they were not separate convictions resulting from the plea described in the sentencing reports.

Altom’s survival also separated the final legal result from the most serious outcome authorities initially feared when deputies reached the Drasco property. Reports based on medical and investigative records said he endured extensive treatment after the shooting. No reliable public reporting reviewed for this story gave a detailed current account of his health beyond his survival and earlier treatment, and no additional statement from him about the Aug. 18 plea and sentence was located.

An attorney representing Mryglod declined to comment when contacted by another news organization after the sentencing. Public reporting did not identify any separate sentencing statement from Mryglod, Altom or prosecutors. The available court reporting shows that Weaver accepted the negotiated plea, imposed the 240-month term and applied the 648 days of credit Mryglod had accumulated while the case was pending.

Mryglod’s guilty plea and sentence resolve the principal criminal charge arising from the Nov. 8, 2024, shooting. She is to serve the 20-year sentence in the Arkansas Division of Correction, subject to the rules governing the administration of her sentence and the jail-time credit ordered by the court. No further trial on the charges dismissed through the plea agreement was reported.

Author note: Last updated September 29, 2026.