ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. - An Allegan County Sheriff’s deputy claims the landlord he was questioning for murder struck him during questioning.

That is what the deputy told a judge during a probable cause hearing Wednesday in Allegan County.  Marion Curt Conley is locked up in the Allegan County Jail awaiting an arraignment after investigators say he killed his tenant Jody Snyder.

“Conley lunged at me and struck me in the face below my left eye,” said the deputy while describing the March 20th interview.

During Snyder’s autopsy, it was discovered a .22 caliber bullet killed the Allegan County man, the same type of ammunition used for a gun investigators believe Conley owned.  Conley told detectives he had not owned a .22 caliber gun since 1950.  But during an interview with Conley’s wife, she told investigators her husband did have a handgun which he kept near his Lazyboy in the living room of their Otsego Township home, said the deputy during the probable cause hearing.

On March 8, Conley returned home at 9:30pm from his rental property.  According to the deputy, Conley’s wife said her husband made a statement that ‘if anyone asks about my gun that you did not see it. You don’t know anything about it.’

On March 9, she looked for the gun and casing and it was gone.

Other witnesses reportedly saw Conley over the years with the gun matching the description of the murder weapon, said the deputy.

The deputy went on the say during the hearing, Conley has multiple registered guns including .22 caliber shot guns and rifles.