The problem I have is Ron's willingness to divorce Misty. If Ron married Misty to keep her quiet, divorce would not have been an option for Ron and he would have stayed married to Misty.
His answer to NG one night about the divorce was: "We can't go anywhere together, they won't leave us alone".....also added, "hope everyone is happy now". Another point to add is that they've never stopped seeing each other so the divorce was a facade as was the marriage.
If Ron married Misty to keep her quiet, and TN and AS were aware of his role in HaLeigh’s disappearance, TN, AS and Misty would have talked him out of the divorce in order to protect his secret, but AFAIK, there was no opposition to Ron's decision to divorce Misty.
Again, refer to comment above.
Ron would have realized that by breaking his promise to Misty, their mutual agreement would no longer be in effect, and unless Misty is dead, another way to prevent her from turning him in to LE would be to pay her a large sum of money.
More to the point as money has never been brought up in anything I've seen out there, another way to prevent her from turning him in to LE would be if he threatened to expose her illegal activities and/or threatened her well being. Seems he did not let her wander too far off unless he knew where she was.
If Ron refused to pay Misty a large sum of money to keep silent when he wanted out of the marriage, Misty had an opportunity to blackmail Ron, but we know after they divorced, Misty did not have enough money to "start over" and she depended on her family and sold drugs to survive.
No facts or even speculation to support this theory. If anything, they were blackmailing each other with information.
Now that they are both incarcerated, if Misty was withholding information from LE about Ron because she fears members of his family would harm her after she was released from jail, she would be eligible for the witness protection program.
Once you're involved in drug activity and get caught, there's no place to hide.
IMO, if Misty had information about HaLeigh, and an acceptable agreement wasn't made when Ron divorced Misty, Misty would have "talked" to LE because it gives her an opportunity to get her jail sentence reduced which is her only concern at this point in time.
I think she's been threatened, IMO. There's only one person that took her to the bridge and explained to her how easy it would be to dispose of a body there. Guess who. All MOO
JMO