HAYWARD — Homicide investigators here had run into a potential problem.

They were sure that the man responsible for the Feb. 2 death of 68-year-old Rolando Silva Sr. was his longtime friend, Larry Lopez, who was seen bringing his gun into Silva’s home just minutes before the homicide. But Lopez’s lawyer was claiming Silva had actually died of suicide, and when detectives swabbed the gun for DNA, the murder case was dealt another blow: skin cells on the trigger were matched to Silva, not Lopez, the undisputed owner of the firearm.

“The DNA kind of supports that of a suicide … the DNA on the trigger is actually the decedent’s,” Hayward police Detective Dominick Reichmuth recounted to a county medical examiner last May, according to court records. But a motion by Lopez’s attorney claims Rei

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