EUREKA ? The mother of a man accused of killing a popular sheriff is now facing jury tampering charges in her son’s capital murder case.

Brenda Sue Freisner, 43, remained in jail Tuesday on a $75,000 bond for two counts of trying to intimidate jurors and another charge of criminal threat. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Meanwhile, jury selection for the trial of Scott Cheever, 26, was in its second week. Cheever could face the death penalty if convicted of capital murder in the death of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels.

Freisner is accused of talking to at least two potential jurors about voting against the death penalty for her son. According to court documents, Freisner tried to talk to the potential jurors at a Hamilton diner in September.

The court documents allege that she told one man that if he made the jury and didn’t vote for life in prison, she would “hunt him down like the dog that he is.”

Freisner’s lawyer, Chad Crum, declined to comment on the case Tuesday.

If convicted, Freisner faces 12 months of probation to 15 months in prison on each count.

In Cheever’s case, lawyers have struggled to find jurors in the county where everyone seemed to have known the slain sheriff. Samuels had followed his father into law enforcement, and he liked to visit with local residents.

By Monday, attorneys for both sides had qualified 32 of the 45 potential jurors needed for the final pool from which 12 jurors will be picked.

Samuels was killed in January 2005 while trying to serve an arrest warrant at a rural residence with a methamphetamine lab.

Cheever’s lawyers have said their client will not contest that he shot Samuels but will contend that he was so high on meth that the crime could not have been premeditated, which is a necessary element of capital murder.