A Woodinville man killed by a King County sheriff's deputy during a domestic-violence call Saturday was not holding a knife when he was shot, the King County Sheriff's Office said.

The man, James L. Slater Jr., 59, at one point had a knife, which he had used to cut his wrists, the Sheriff's Office says.

But investigators determined Slater had left the knife on a wooden garden bench on a neighbor's property before walking toward Deputy Peter Cougan on Saturday night, said sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.

After Slater had moved about 40 feet toward Cougan, ignoring the deputy's commands, Cougan opened fire, Urquhart said Wednesday.

"When the detectives got there, he 1/8Slater3/8 did not have a knife — he left the knife on the bench where he had been sitting," Urquhart said.

The new details confirm claims made Monday by Slater's wife and a neighbor, both of whom said Slater was unarmed at the time he was shot. But his wife, Laura Casablanca, disputed Wednesday a new detail released by the Sheriff's Office.

Urquhart said Slater's wife had indicated there were "guns in the house" when deputies responded to the couple's home after Casablanca called 911.

But she disputed that.

"They did ask me if he had any guns," Casablanca said Wednesday. "But I said 'no, there was no access to guns to my husband.' "

"What I told the officer was that I had a gun, but I had it locked up in my car," she added. "There was no other gun in my house."

Casablanca declined to say Wednesday why she and her husband of eight years were fighting about 8:30 p.m. Saturday inside their tan-and-brown mobile home along Northeast Woodinville-Duvall Road.

"It's kind of personal," she said.

After arguing, Casablanca said, Slater began to drink. Then, the fight got physical, she said.

"He is not alcoholic. This is not a daily thing," she said. "He just got out of control and upset, and the situation just escalated. That's why I had to call 911."

At Slater's home Monday, the woman's lower right jaw and lip were bruised and puffy when she was interviewed.

After Saturday's scuffle, Slater left the home, Casablanca said. Before leaving, she said, her husband apparently took what Casablanca described as a "carving knife" from the kitchen.

Outside the couple's home Monday, a trail of blood could be seen leading from the driveway, along the shoulder of Northeast Woodinville-Duvall Road, and into a neighbor's driveway. Two large blood stains were visible on the neighbor's nearby garden bench, where the Sheriff's Office now says Slater had been sitting and had left the knife.

Neighbors said it was daylight when deputies arrived. Guests at a nearby Fourth of July celebration heard someone yelling commands followed by two gunshots. A deputy was later seen trying to resuscitate Slater.

"My intention in calling the police was for them to break up the situation," said Casablanca, who added she is meeting with an attorney and plans to pursue a lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office.

"Jim was a very good man. He did not deserve this. Why they had to put two bullets in him; why they couldn't see he didn't have a knife even though it was daylight, I don't know."

Cougan, 28, who has been with the Sheriff's Office for about four years, is on paid administrative leave, which is routine in an officer-involved shooting.

The Sheriff's Office is still investigating the case, a process that could take months.