POMEROY — Prosecutors called additional witnesses Monday in their case against Paula Rizer, Portland, accusing her of the April, 2009 murder of her husband, Kenneth Rizer, Sr.

A computer forensics expert with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation testified to the results of a limited search of the Rizers’ computer hard drives and other electronic equipment. The deputy sheriff, Scott Trussell, who transported Rizer to jail and conducted the first interview with her, also took the stand.

County Coroner Douglas Hunter also testified for the prosecution yesterday. He was called to the scene by his investigator, Health Commissioner Larry Marshall.

Hunter had been Rizer’s family physician, and said yesterday he had treated him with anti-inflammatory drugs for back and knee pain. He described Rizer as “gentle,” and said he was able to move freely — but slowly — in spite of his pain.

When Hunter arrived at the Rizers’ home in Lebanon Township on April 3, Kenneth Rizer’s body was in his reclining chair, and he had already been declared dead by EMS Director Douglas Lavender.

Hunter said there was evidence the body had moved before he arrived, including the direction of blood flow from his mouth. He said such movement, often the result of attempts at first aid, is not uncommon.

Hunter said from his observations in the Rizer home, it was “pretty obvious” Rizer had been seated in the chair at the time he was shot, based on the body’s position, the location of gunshot wounds in the body and bullet holes in the chair, and blood spatter found on the wall behind the recliner, which he characterized as high-velocity spatter.

Hunter acknowledged, however, that the direction of the bullets fired could not be determined until an autopsy was performed, and that he was not specifically trained in interpreting blood spatter evidence.

Hunter ruled the cause of death a homicide, result of multiple gunshot wounds.

The Ohio BCI determined there was insufficient blood found on the wall to make any determinations as to location of the shooter or the victim’s location at the time the shots were fired.

Brandon Hoyt of the Ohio BCI completed a search of two computer hard drives and a digital camera just last week. To do so, Hoyt said, he made forensic copies of the hard drives and analyzed the e-mail and images found on them.

Hoyt used key word searches, including “murder,” “blood,” and “domestic violence” to identify possible evidence. One computer hard drive revealed nothing relevant, Hoyt said, while another identified two e-mails, a photograph representing sexual domination, and two images he described as pornographic.

One of the e-mails in question, with the subject line “murder versus divorce,” was a forwarded joke commonly circulated among e-mail users, dated more than a year before the Rizer shooting. The second was an e-mail sent by Paula Rizer about auto racing.

Hoyt acknowledged a thorough search of all data on a personal computer could take years. The state requested the analysis on Dec. 14, he said, but time constraints apply to all cases and usually prevent a full search.

Trussell was the first law enforcement officer responding to the Rizer home on April 3. He found Paula Rizer at her dead husband’s knees.

“I shot him,” Trussell said she told him. “The gun wouldn’t quit firing.”

Trussell later conducted a tearful tape-recorded interview with Rizer, in which she recounted the events she said led up to her shooting her husband. She said they had returned from a trip to the supermarket, and he had taken a nap while she worked on a redecorating project.

When he awoke, Rizer told Trussell in the hours after the shooting, Kenny Rizer, Sr. insisted on teaching her to use the Hi-Point semi-automatic handgun he kept on top of a gun cabinet in their home.

Rizer told Trussell she had not wanted to learn to use the weapon. When she demanded her husband help her with the gun, he struggled to get out of the chair, and the gun fired. Once she realized what happened, she said, she called one of her stepsons who lived nearby.

In testimony she offered in her own defense last year, Paula Rizer said she and her husband had argued throughout the day of the shooting, and in the moments directly before she shot her husband. Many of those details are not part of Rizer’s statement to Trussell.