FREEHOLD — Despite a 73-year-old Middletown woman’s claim she accidentally shot her disabled husband in December, a Monmouth County grand jury released an indictment this week charging her with her murder.

The grand jury returned the indictment on Monday charging Michele Linzalone of the Lincroft section of Middletown with the knowing and willful murder of her husband, identified in the document by his initials, RL, but previously identified as 74-year-old Rocky Linzalone.

The indictment also charged Linzalone with possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

Linzalone has been held without bond in Monmouth County Jail since December 13, when she called police to tell them she had accidentally shot her husband.

When officers arrived at her home, Linzalone told them she was playing with her gun when it accidentally discharged and did not know it was loaded, prosecutors said. When asked to explain what she meant by playing with the gun, she told officers she was pointing the gun at her husband as he slept in bed. authorities said.

A few minutes earlier, Linzalone searched the internet asking, “If you shoot someone in the head, will they die instantly?” said an assistant Monmouth County prosecutor during his detention hearing in December. -point bullets, the assistant district attorney, Lawrence Nelson, said during the hearing.

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Following Linzalone’s indictment, his attorney, Edward C. Bertucio, insisted his client was innocent.

“Her husband’s unfortunate death for decades was an accident, not an intentional crime,” Bertucio said in a phone interview.

He described the Linzalones as multi-millionaires and said his client made no effort to transfer the money to their accounts after her husband’s death.

“There is no evidence that she was trying to make a substantial profit from the very large marital fortune, and she looks forward to her day in court to exonerate herself,” Bertucio said of her client.

The defense attorney said he hired two ballistics experts “to prove it was an accident and not a homicide.”

Linzalone’s gun was legally owned, he added.

She told police she had the gun for protection and usually kept it on her nightstand, authorities said.

Police documents previously revealed that two of Linzalone’s relatives told police she was overwhelmed with having to be her husband’s caretaker after suffering a series of strokes in recent years.

Linzalone is expected to be arraigned on March 22, Bertucio said.

She would face a minimum of 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of murder.

Kathleen Hopkins, a New Jersey reporter since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues, unsolved mysteries and just about every major murder trial in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.