WOBURN - City and state investigators linked the .38-caliber handgun used to murder Joyce Middle School teacher Sylvie Desilets to an out-of-state gun show purchase last April.

According to Woburn Police Chief Philip Mahoney, the handgun allegedly wielded by Desilets' estranged husband, Ajit Chordia, 33, during the Cambridge Road murder-suicide nearly three-weeks ago has been traced to a purchase by a yet-to-be-identified male at a gun show in Brownsville, Texas.

While the purchaser of the two weapons has yet to be positively identified, investigators have learned that the buyer matches the description of Chordia — who was apparently visiting his sister in the Lone Star state at around the time the two .38-caliber guns were sold, the police chief confirmed.

"The person who bought the gun fits the description of the man who committed suicide, but we're not sure if it was him. We do know they were bought in April and that [Chordia] was visiting his sister in Texas at that time," Mahoney said.

"Was the firearm sold legally whereas he was a national from Canada? I don't know, and that's one of the questions I'd like to see answered," the police chief added.

If Chordia is indeed identified as the gun buyer, the early April purchase would seem to validate previous statements made by Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley that the murder suicide was planned far in advance by Chordia — who closed his bank accounts, empowered a lawyer with power of attorney, and sent money to his mother's home in India prior to gunning down Desilets and taking his own life at the Hillcrest Arms apartment complex.

However, Mahoney also believes that the purchase of the guns riddles holes in Coakley's suspicions that the 33-year-old carried out the act after accessing his ex-wife's e-mail account and finding that she was involved with another man.

According to the police chief, he never agreed with that suspected motive from the outset, arguing that evidence already pointed to lengthy pre-planning for the event on Chordia's behalf. In addition, police have yet to uncover any information from the language teacher's co-workers, family, or friends indicating that she was involved in a dating relationship with another person.

"There's absolutely no truth to the rumor that she was dating someone else behind his back," Mahoney said, venting a little annoyance at the "affair" rumors, which he considers hurtful for the middle school teacher's surviving family members and friends.

"She did nothing wrong in this. There was no way she was having an affair. He had made a long planned-out decision, the purchase of the gun being one of them. It was a plot from day one and he carried it through," said Mahoney.

While acknowledging that he has no idea what exactly triggered the 33-year-old to kill his ex-wife — whom he had divorced last March in what was characterized as an amicable separation — Mahoney speculated that the finality of the divorce might have set in.

Referring to similar murder-suicide incidents that occur across the nation on a regular basis, the police chief believes that Chordia might have felt as if he was "losing his wife" when he began planning the event.