{"id":176670,"date":"2024-03-07T04:57:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T09:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=176670"},"modified":"2024-03-08T04:48:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T09:48:52","slug":"murder-suspect-gets-new-attorney-trial-now-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2024\/03\/07\/murder-suspect-gets-new-attorney-trial-now-delayed\/","title":{"rendered":"Houser gets new attorney, trial delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong><em>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A man charged in connection with a September shooting in Van Wert has had his upcoming trial delayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During a hearing held Wednesday morning in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court, Judge Martin Burchfield granted a change of counsel request made by Ryan Houser, 38, who has addresses in Rockford and Celina. Attorney Zach Maisch, of Lima, was appointed as Houser\u2019s new attorney, and a pre-trial conference was scheduled for 3 p.m. April 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"208\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Ryan-Houser.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-173894\"\/><figcaption>Ryan Houser<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Houser was previously represented by court-appointed attorney Scott Gordon but in January, Houser made a request to change lawyers via a handwritten note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHi this is Ryan Houser,\u201d the request said. \u201cI would like a deff att (sic) Scott Gordon is not working out for me. Thank you, Ryan Houser. This letter is for the Judge Martin Burchfield.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His request was rejected, but Judge Burchfield appointed Maisch as a second attorney for a second opinion only. A second request was made on February 27, which led to Wednesday\u2019s hearing. Houser was present at the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Houser is accused of killing Barbara Ganger, 43, of Van Wert. Her body was discovered on September 4, after the Van Wert Police Department was asked to do a welfare check at her residence at Van Wert West Apartments on W. Main St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Officers discovered she had been shot twice, once in the stomach area and once in the head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. Judge Burchfield set bond was at $1 million. A request made in November to modify his bond was denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Houser is facing four charges, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His trial was scheduled for April 15-19, but due to the change in attorneys, it\u2019s been delayed and new trial dates have not been set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor A man charged in connection with a September shooting in Van Wert has had his upcoming trial delayed. During a hearing held Wednesday morning in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court, Judge Martin Burchfield granted a change of counsel request made by Ryan Houser, 38, who has addresses in Rockford and Celina. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 16:18:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176670"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176727,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176670\/revisions\/176727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}