The story of what led to Las Vegas mother of four Tammy Meyers being shot and killed in front of her home has changed again.

Police arrested 19-year-old Erich Milton Nowsch for the shooting last week. At Nowsch's first court appearance Monday, his lawyers, Conrad and Augustus Claus, said that their client was acting in self-defense, and that he feared for his life.

Initially, the Meyers' family told police that Nowsch was in a car that got in a minor crash with Tammy Meyers as she drove home her teenage daughter from a driving lesson. That car, the family first claimed, followed Meyers' home and fired shots, striking Meyers in the head.

But soon after, the family revealed an additional layer: After the alleged crash (police do not believe Meyers' car was involved in a collision), Meyers drove home, picked up her son Brandon and his registered handgun, and went looking for the car. After finding the vehicle, they eventually returned home, followed by the car supposedly carrying Nowsch, who allegedly opened fired and hit Meyers.

In Nowsch's version of the story, there were two shootouts between himself and Brandon Meyers. From the Associated Press:

Police said Nowsch told friends he was at the park and became alarmed by a vehicle he thought was following him, so he called a friend to pick him up.

Police also said Nowsch bragged to friends several hours after the shooting that he "got those kids, they were after me, and I got them."

Nowsch showed his friends a.45-caliber handgun and told them he fired several shots in the first encounter and 22 shots in the cul-de-sac, authorities said.

Tammy Meyers' husband, Robert, who was out of town when the shooting occurred, now also claims that his wife was not killed in an act of road rage, but "was followed home and murdered."

The inconsistencies in the Meyers' story are stacking up: They first described the shooting suspect as standing 6 feet tall and weighing about 180 pounds; Nowsch is five-foot-six and slight. They family was also slow to reveal their relationship with Nowsch. From the AP:

Tammy Meyers served as a mother figure to youngsters about the same age as her children, now 15 to 22, Meyers said, and two of Meyers' sons attended high school with Nowsch.

Meyers said this wife gave Nowsch $20 when he said he was hungry, and the husband recalled Nowsch earning pocket money washing cars outside the Meyers home.

The teen and the neighborhood mom may have seen each other in passing on the weekend of Feb. 7-8, when Tammy Meyers walked the family dogs in the park where Nowsch often sat at a picnic bench with other teens, Robert Meyers said.

"I don't know what she saw," Robert Meyers told the Associated Press. "She's dead. I can't ask her. But this was intentional—to kill the person in the green car."

Nowsch has been charged by police with first-degree murder, attempted murder, and discharging a gun into a vehicle. He did not enter a plea at this court appearance Monday.

[Image via AP]