POMEROY — The semi-automatic handgun Meigs County resident Paula Rizer allegedly used to shoot her husband with in April has been released to Rizer’s defense team for analysis and testing.

Rizer will face a second jury early next month, on a charge of murder. In November, a jury acquitted her of aggravated murder, but deadlocked on the lesser charge of murder. She has been in the Washington County Jail since the death of her husband, Kenny Rizer, Sr., on April 3, in lieu of a half million-dollar cash bond.

In an entry filed in Rizer’s case Monday, Judge Fred W. Crow III ordered the release of the Hi-Point 9-mm introduced into evidence in her October trial. Rizer allegedly used the gun to fire five shots at her husband, killing him in his recliner. Her attorneys, Herman Carson and Glenn Jones, asked the court to turn over the weapon for further analysis and testing.

The weapon must be returned to Crow by Dec. 29.

In her October trial, Rizer said her husband insisted on teaching her to use the gun — although she said she did not wish to learn how to use it — and it fired during a struggle between them. Forensic investigators tested the gun and said it operated as it should, and that it could not have fired repeatedly unless Rizer pulled the trigger each time.

In other developments in the case, the defense has asked for a hearing to determine the competency of a prospective witness in the case: Rizer’s seven year-old granddaughter who lived with the couple at the time of the shooting. The child was not a witness in the first trial. No such competency hearing has been set.

Additional evidence can be expected at Rizer’s January re-trial, including a paddle pictured in crime scene photos taken the day of Kenny Rizer, Sr.’s death. A subpoena was issued to two of Rizer’s sons, who serve as administrators of their father’s estate, asking them to bring the paddle as evidence when they appear at the trial.

Several officials at the Washington County Jail, where Rizer has been incarcerated since her initial arrest in April, have also been subpoenaed as witnesses in the case, which will begin with jury selection on Jan. 7.