The Dallas County Sheriff's Department is investigating how a pistol that Lupe Valdez carried when she was sheriff suddenly surfaced in the department's property room amid media reports that the gun was missing.

"It's a matter of accountability and a matter of integrity," interim Sheriff Marian Brown told The Dallas Morning News editorial board Tuesday. "It's just unfortunate that this whole thing happened."

In July, Sheriff's Department officials declared that the gun, which should have been turned in when Valdez resigned to run for governor, could not be found. The department opened an investigation into the lost or stolen gun and worked with Valdez to retrieve it, a department spokesman said at the time. There was concern that the gun could fall into the wrong hands and be used in a crime.

After The News broke the story that the gun was missing, Brown ordered what was at least a second audit to find the 9 mm pistol. It was quickly found, mysteriously discovered in a caged area in the department's property room and not a safe where it should have been. A proper signature was not on the card attached to the pistol, Brown said.

"I don't know where it was all this time," the interim sheriff said Tuesday. "The question remains: Was it there and somebody just didn't see it? How is it that it got in and one piece of paper was signed and not the card? There are a lot of questions that still remain."

Brown said the gun obviously had been mishandled, or worse.

"It almost looked like somebody had it and they were going to do something else, and they set it down and they just never came back to it," she said. "Either that or it mysteriously appeared."

No fingerprints

Brown said she was so concerned about how the weapon was handled that she ordered a fingerprint check.

"We did not get prints off of it, which was in and of itself strange because there should have been some prints of somebody who handled the weapon," Brown said.

She said that the investigation was being handled by the department's internal affairs division and that officials in charge of property room intake had been "moved out" of their positions. The process is being overhauled. No one has been fired, Brown said.

Brown said "somebody knows where the gun came from," but she conceded that getting to the bottom of the incident could be difficult.

"Who knows what in the world happened?" she said. " We don't, and we probably never will know."

Valdez and her campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Valdez took responsibility

In August, Valdez said the pistol had been "misplaced" during her transition from sheriff to candidate for governor, telling Texans that she took responsibility for the missing gun.

"During my transition from Sheriff to candidate in 2017, I followed protocol to return Sheriff-issued property," Valdez said in a written statement. "Once I was notified that my weapon was not accounted for, I did my due diligence to locate the weapon. To my knowledge, my weapon was misplaced during the transition."

"As a leader, I take responsibility for any error that happened during my transition regarding my weapon," she added. "I take gun ownership seriously and I have cooperated with the department."

The episode is embarrassing for Valdez, who in 2004 became the first Hispanic, gay woman to be elected sheriff in Texas. Her rivals have been poking her about the lost gun.

On Twitter, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's campaign account said, "Texans deserve better."

"Lupe Valdez wants to run the state of Texas but can't even keep track of her gun?" the campaign tweeted.

But shortly after Valdez took blame for the missing gun, it was found. In a news release at the time, Brown said the pistol had been turned in on Jan. 2. Her office didn't say who had turned it in or why it had taken so long to find.

"After a previous audit failed to locate the weapon, current Interim Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown ordered another inventory be completed on the Sheriff's Property Room yesterday," the August news release said. "After a thorough inventory of every weapon, the missing Berretta 9mm handgun was found."

The release also said that the gun had been turned in to the property room on Jan. 2 but "was not entered into the inventory at the time."

Brown, who is running against Republican Aaron Meek for sheriff in the November general election and who has Valdez's backing, apologized to the Democratic nominee for governor.

"Former Sheriff Valdez has been notified and advised that the gun has been recovered," the news release said. "Sheriff Brown and the Sheriff's Department offer their sincere apologies to former Sheriff Lupe Valdez for any distress and hardship that was created as a result of the Department's mistake."

On Tuesday, Brown said she had questions about Valdez's account of when she turned in the gun, an account Brown got through discussions Valdez had with her chiefs.

"She said, 'I thought I turned that gun in,'" Brown said. "If I turned in a weapon, I'm going to know I turned it in."

When the gun was finally discovered, a department signature seemed to confirm that Valdez had indeed handed the gun over.

"Somebody knows where this came from," Brown said. "I had my own questions. I had my own concerns."