KNOXVILLE, Tenn.  Few people here know that the ashes of David Leath, still in the cardboard box from the crematorium, are kept on a shelf above the clean towels in the Suburban Barber Shop where he cut hair at the middle chair for almost 40 years.

But almost everyone has an opinion on how he ended up there. Mr. Leath, 57, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his own bed in 2003. His wife, Raynella Dossett Leath, said it was a suicide, but she was ultimately charged with murder. Her dramatic trial last year gripped the city, but it ended in a hung jury. Last week, she went on trial again.

The trail of death in the case, however, does not begin and end with a beloved barber, but winds its way up to the highest levels of law enforcement in this city. There was a fatal car crash, a love child, a missing will and, strangest of all, the 1992 death, officially by cattle stampede, of the Knox County prosecutor, Ed Dossett, who happened to be Ms. Dossett Leath’s first husband at the time.

During the investigation of Mr. Leath’s death, prosecutors became convinced that the death of Mr. Dossett was also a homicide, and they have charged Ms. Dossett Leath, 61, in that case as well. That trial will begin in August.