It may not be smoking. But investigators have located a gun that could have killed Auburn’s Janet Kovacich 26 years ago – and it might play a key role in her husband’s upcoming murder trial.

Lincoln residents Craig and Nancy DeLoach gave a .44 caliber pistol to a Placer County Sheriff’s Department investigator on Monday.

“All we were told was that a sergeant may have killed his wife 25 years ago,” Nancy DeLoach said Tuesday.

The couple was also told that the stainless-steel handgun had initially belonged to the suspect and then been given or sold to a law enforcement officer. A friend of Craig DeLoach’s was given the gun by the second owner – an officer, identified as a captain – as payment for work he had done. When the friend moved from the area, the friend gave Craig the gun as a keepsake, Nancy DeLoach said.

“If it killed a person, we don’t want it anymore,” Nancy DeLoach said. “It’s got bad karma.”

What exactly law enforcement will do with the weapon and how it will affect the upcoming murder trial in Placer County superior court of former sheriff’s Sgt. Paul Kovacich would be conjecture. A gag order has been put in place, preventing anyone involved with court proceedings from discussing the case or evidence.

The DeLoaches have owned the gun for seven years. Because it was a private transfer, they have not registered the transaction. It’s been in a trigger lock for several years and the couple had misplaced the key.

The investigator was taking a long time trying to find the serial number, DeLoach said.

“The lock was in the way but when he found the serial number, he didn’t focus on anything after that,” she said. “He was excited and while he kept saying there was a gag order, he did say ‘You’ll read about it.’”

The Sheriff’s Department initially called about a week ago and then made a more urgent request for the Smith & Wesson pistol Monday. The DeLoaches then learned more about the case the gun may be involved in.

“It was amazing how they tracked it down because there was no paper trail,” DeLoach said.

The man who gave Craig the gun now lives in Thousand Oaks.

“My husband’s a hero to give it up,” Nancy DeLoach said. “He could have said that we don’t have it any more.”

DeLoach said it’s likely the gun they have is the gun the Sheriff’s Department wants in its investigation of the death of Janet Kovacich 26 years ago.

“By the way the guy was acting, it probably is,” DeLoach said.

Janet Kovacich was reported missing Sept. 9, 1982. She and Paul Kovacich lived in the Skyridge subdivision in South Auburn. The day she disappeared, she had made an appointment to register the couple’s children in a private school her husband disapproved of, accounts at the time stated.

The initial Auburn Police investigation revolved around the possibility that Janet Kovacich had left her family. Paul Kovacich had initially been given time to look for his wife before police became involved three days after her disappearance.

The Auburn Police investigation was never closed and after a murder indictment was handed down by a Placer County grand jury, Paul Kovacich was arrested Sept. 5, 2006.

The gun’s surfacing wasn’t the first time a new piece of potentially important evidence has turned up – even more than two decades after Janet Kovacich disappeared. A section of skull recovered in 1995 from Rollins Lake, near Colfax, underwent a DNA test two years ago. The test identified the skull fragment as Janet Kovacich’s. The county coroner also determined a hole was caused by a gunshot, although defense attorney’s argue that it can’t be a certainty.

Kovacich awaits trial on a murder charge with an enhancement of using a firearm to commit the murder.

Placer County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Scott Owens was apprised Tuesday of the DeLoaches’ experience and re-iterated that no comment would be made on the case because of the gag order.

The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.