Darrel Hetrick, who pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge, was not supposed to have a gun.
But police say he had a gun when he threatened to shoot Monongalia County sheriff's deputies late last month. Deputies shot and killed the 82-year-old man after they showed up at his house in the middle of the night.
They arrived at the home after Hetrick allegedly had been seen with his wife, in violation of a court order, at an assisted living facility the previous day.
Crystal Hetrick, his daughter, told MetroNews that in February, court officials told Hetrick police would remove guns from his home as a result of a domestic violence charge.
She said police allowed him to keep a pistol.
Monongalia County Sheriff Al Kisner, meanwhile, says that guns were removed from the home.
But it's not as if police locked them in a safe and threw away the key.
The guns - as the law allows - were sent home with family members, according to Kisner.
Darrel Hetrick was charged with domestic battery on June 11, 2015. He pleaded no contest, paid a fine of $318.60 and was placed on unsupervised probation.
Hetrick was shot and killed at his home on Price Hill Road on the southern outskirts of Morgantown on Aug. 27. Deputies had showed up at about 12:30 a.m. because Hetrick had allegedly violated a court order.
Hetrick was supposed to visit his wife only under supervision, according to a criminal complaint, after the misdemeanor domestic battery conviction.
Kisner, who has refused to name the deputies involved, has said Hetrick had a gun and threatened to kill them.
Dan Price, a neighbor and a retired police officer, questioned why police chose 12:30 a.m. as the best time to serve a warrant to an 82-year-old man.
Hetrick, a Korean combat veteran, had worked for the railroad before he retired, according to Price. He said Hetrick had an extreme hearing problem.
"I don't think he had any idea what was going on," he said.
Price said Hetrick's savings account had been frozen when his wife was taken to the rest home, and that neighbors had been bringing him food.
"He was confused," he said. "He didn't know why she couldn't be there at home."
Price said Hetrick's wife suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
"From what he told me, he was just defending himself," he said, referring to the incident that led to the domestic battery charge. "He said she became violent and he defended himself."
Kisner responded by saying that "everyone has a right to their own opinion."
"There were no restrictions on the service time on the warrant," he said.
Asked if police might have had additional considerations other than legal considerations, Kisner said legal restrictions are "all we have to look at."
Last week, Kisner responded to allegations that his sheriff's deputies knowingly allowed Hetrick to possess a gun.
Hetrick's daughter, Crystal Hetrick, told MetroNews more than a week ago that court officials told him in February that police would remove guns from his home. She said police characterized her father as "a poor old man, a veteran trying to protect himself," and let him keep a pistol.
Magistrate Saundra Holepit issued a sentencing order in February stating that Hetrick was not to possess firearms. The sentencing order states that the sheriff's department "will remove all firearms and ammo from Def.'s home" until his nephew could pick it up.
Kisner said deputies went to the home to retrieve the firearms and did remove from the home the guns that they found, when Hetrick allowed them to search.
Kisner noted that the civil sentencing order was not a search warrant and was "not for deputies to go in anybody's house and search it."
"He invited them in," Kisner said. "He told them if they wanted to look around, they were welcome to do that."
Kisner also said that on July 20, Deputy Tony Bise went to the home to give Hetrick an order showing funds had been removed from his bank account for the care of his wife.
During that incident, Hetrick's niece told Bise that Hetrick had a gun. Bise wrote the criminal complaint about Hetrick allegedly violating the court order barring him from unsupervised contact with his wife, so he presumably knew about the domestic violence conviction.
"The deputy said, 'I don't have an order to remove any more guns but if you want to remove it from the house, you can do that,'" Kisner said.
She asked the deputy to unload the gun, and took it with her, according to Kisner.
"Now how he got the gun back, we don't know," Kisner said. "We know that day the niece did leave the residence with the gun."
But conversations with those in the criminal justice field in West Virginia indicate that many convicted abusers in the state likely possess or have access to guns. Hetrick's case sticks out because he ended up dead.
Advocates working to prevent domestic violence don't know how many domestic abusers in the state continue to possess guns.
"I don't know how often it happens but I think it's pretty common for abusers to not be forthcoming about how many weapons they have or they'll give them to a friend or just not tell the police about them," said Judy King, executive director of the Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center in Morgantown.
Marium Durrani, public policy attorney for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said the problem is not unique to West Virginia.
"It's a huge problem," she said. "It's happening everywhere."
But the network has no proposed policy solutions. She described it as a problem of enforcement.
"We can't really pass new laws to fix these loopholes because there are things that are already supposed to be happening," she said.
Police also agreed there are likely numerous domestic abusers across the state who have access to firearms.
Troy Ball, a Morgantown police officer who specializes in domestic violence, noted that the law allows domestic abusers to store their guns with third parties.
"That could be anybody, a neighbor, a friend, family," he said. "They would have access."
He also noted that abusers can lie to police.
Kisner said he "certainly wouldn't isolate it to Monongalia County."
"There are prohibited people all over the country that have firearms that should not have possession of them," he said.
Lisa Tackett, director of the state's Division of Family Court Services, said West Virginia has made progress in recent years toward removing guns from domestic batterers. She said when domestic violence protective orders are granted, some processes are automatically triggered.
She said West Virginia has a database of domestic violence protective orders that 911 centers and police agencies can check, and the state sends notice of active domestic violence protective orders to a national registry that is checked when people attempt to buy guns at retailers. She also said when a protective order is filed, the family court judge inquires if the abuser has surrendered their firearms during the final hearing.
A conviction doesn't automatically trigger any process for removing guns from a domestic batterer's home.
And with or without a domestic violence protective order, the accountability tends to falls on the abuser.
"It's that if you get caught with a firearm, you've committed a crime," Tackett said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.