Accused killer changes lawyers again

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

For the third time since his arrest, a man accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend in Van Wert late last summer has a different lawyer.

Lima attorney Kenneth Rexford is now representing Ryan Houser, 38, who has addresses in Rockford and Celina. According to paperwork filed with the Van Wert County Clerk of Courts Office on Thursday, June 20, Rexford is serving as substitute counsel.

According to Van Wert County Common Pleas Court Administrator LaGina Richardson, Rexford was retained by Houser’s family. He’s replacing attorney Zachary Maisch, who was appointed as Houser’s lawyer in January. Houser was originally represented by Van Wert attorney Scott Gordon, but requested a change earlier that month.

Houser is seeking up to $5,000 to pay a private investigator to aid in his defense. Maisch filed the request on his behalf on June 17. In response, Van Wert County Prosecutor Eva Yarger filed a motion requesting the court re-evaluate Houser’s claim of indigency. A hearing date has not been set on the motions and a ruling is pending from a suppression hearing held on May 6. Maisch claimed Houser was never given a Miranda warning during several interviews with law enforcement officers, and he asked Judge Martin Burchfield to suppress multiple statements solicited from Houser by law enforcement officers on different occasions during the investigation. Yarger and two Van Wert detectives, Lt. Rob Black and Sgt. Brock Blackmore refuted the claims.

Houser is charged with aggravated murder, an unclassified felony; murder, an unclassified felony; possessing a weapon under disability, a third degree felony, and tampering with evidence, a third degree felony.

The charges are connected to the death of Barbara Ganger. Houser is accused of fatally shooting Ganger, 43, at Van Wert West Apartments on September 3. Her body was discovered a day later, after the Van Wert Police Department was contacted to do a welfare check. Officers discovered she had been shot twice, once in the stomach area and once in the head.

Houser was arrested and jailed in Mercer County on September 8 on unrelated charges of having a weapon under disability and a probation/parole violation. He was indicted by a Van Wert County grand jury November 2, and pleaded not guilty during an arraignment hearing held several days later. He remains in jail in lieu of $1 million bond.

Houser was originally scheduled to stand trial the week of April 15. A new trial date has not been set.