Tennessee ? Defense attorneys for a preacher’s wife accused of killing her husband questioned potential jurors Tuesday about whether they had ever been in abusive relationships and if they thought guns could accidentally discharge.

The line of questioning suggested that defense attorneys for Mary Winkler may try to argue during the first-degree murder trial that she had been abused and that the shooting was an accident.

“Does anyone disagree that firearms can be discharged accidentally, or unintentionally?” defense attorney Steve Farese asked. “Do you agree with me that it’s not unusual for many women not to know how to load a firearm?”

Matthew Winkler, a popular 31-year-old preacher at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer, was found fatally wounded from a shotgun blast in the church parsonage in March 2006. His wife, Mary Winkler, 33, was arrested one day later some 340 miles away on the Alabama coast with their three young daughters.