WESTERLO — A probation violation against Shawn Duncan, brought when police found a stun gun in his home, was withdrawn in Albany County Court last month.

The gun was found in Duncan’s home when a search warrant was issued following the killing of his stepmother’s horse in May. The horse, Belle, was found dead with an arrow in its side. Duncan’s estranged father, Robert Duncan, had rescued the Thoroughbred after a racing injury.

In Duncan’s home, police found bows and arrows, a stun gun, 15 grams of marijuana, and a smoking pipe, according to the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.

Duncan’s wife, Siobhan Duncan, said he was pulled over while driving with their children to his mother’s house, and police handcuffed him.

“If he had known that was a violation of his probation, it would never have been in our house,” she said of the stun gun, speaking to The Enterprise in June. The arrest report says the gun was in their bedroom. She said the bows and arrows were used by their children.

Duncan, 35, faces the same charges — criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of marijuana — but is scheduled to appear on Oct. 8 in Knox, a town court where felonies cannot be sentenced.

The charges are unrelated to the horse’s killing but resulted from the search. The warrant was issued out of Westerlo Town Court and based on interviews with family members, said Inspector William Riley, head of the Criminal Investigations Unit for the sheriff’s office.

Riley said the ongoing investigation on the horse’s death is awaiting three pieces of evidence that were sent to a State Police lab for analysis. One piece had an “inconclusive” result, he said, and the others, including DNA evidence, will take longer.

Sheriff Craig Apple told The Enterprise in June that shoe prints and tire marks were taken from the scene.

A spokesman for the Albany County Probation Department could not be reached in time for comment on why the violation was withdrawn. Cecilia Walsh, spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, declined to talk about the ongoing case.

“My client has done well on probation, meaning, other than this arrest, there’s been no arrests,” said Duncan’s attorney, Lee Greenstein. “And, to the extent that there is a new charge based on a search warrant, I believe the search warrant is questionable as far as the basis for it, and I’m confident that we’ll have a good result on the pending charges in Knox.”

“The bottom line is they had some unfounded suspicions…about my client’s involvement with the death of that horse,” Greenstein added. “And so the fact that there have been no charges brought, that’s why the search warrant was questionable.”

“The biggest issue was the probation violation,” said Siobhan Duncan. “That being lifted, we’re hoping everything else will be lifted.” She said he is out on bail and returning to work in construction after recovering from leg surgeries.

“He’s doing much better,” she said.

Shawn and Siobhan Duncan were arrested at a Thompsons Lake campground in 2010 for a felony and two misdemeanors when they were found with others in a trailer that had drugs inside. He had been arrested in 2003 when the sheriff’s office found 37 marijuana plants in his home. When he was a teenager, he was sentenced to two-and-two-thirds to five-and-one-third years in jail after he was arrested for burglarizing homes with others.