JFK - Oswald - Lincoln:  Forensic Firearm Examination

on death investigation. It just so happens that his life intersected with three of the principal people involved in the JFK assassination, actually four, and three of the four had something in common. They all died as a result of gunshot. Ones today on body Bags, in a continuing effort to offer our friends out there a bit of forensic education, if you will, we're going to be talking about gunfire and gunfire related deaths because let's face that, it's part

of the fabric of who we are in America. It happens every single day. There are many cases out there that are quite high profile, but there are others that go without a whisper. But the one thing they have in common is the trauma they are subjected to at the hands of someone that has fired a weapon into their body. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body backs. It's really hard to know, looking back through time, who the first victim of a gunshot wound was. And I'm

not even talking about lethal. We know that the Chinese invented gunpowder, and we know that as early as the

twelve hundreds they had a firearm. This is something that they would load. It's essentially a tube packed with gunpowder. They would spark this thing off and they just put all manner of trapnel down the barrel, which he turns this into a gigantic shotgun, if you will, not very aerodynamic, but for its time, I'm sure that it was quite frightful for those that were on the business end of the weapon. If you will, to have these items flying through the air at you and slamming into your body.

Things that in the past maybe you wore armor for, like to defeat a sword or a spear blow, were insufficient to the task. And suddenly a whole new world opened up in warfare and then eventually trickles down to the civilian world. But we do know that there was one gentleman that is the first recorded assassination victim by someone that had fired a weapon. And this gent's name and he's rather fashma. I'm looking at the image of

him right now. Was a guy named James Stewart, first Earl of Moray, and back in I don't know, about fifteen seventy he was summoned up north to a castle in Scotland and there was another gentleman who was displeased with Moray, or Stewart rather, and from an open window fired a matchlock weapon at him matchlock carbine as it's referred to as, and struck him down and killed him. This guy's name was James Hamilton. Now, over a period of tom I think much has been forgotten about that case.

But every single day, Dave in the news, we hear about people that die as a result of gunfire. It's part and parcel of who we are in America. A reality whether regardless of how you think about or feel feel about weapons farms specifically, it's the reality that we have to deal with in forensics and all the remains of individuals who have in fact been shot dead.

I've heard it some different ways. But you've got a cheap twelve dollars mail order rife that supposedly took down the leader of the Free world from the third floor of the school at Texas school book depository, from a

shot that couldn't be made by experts, and he wasn't even a you know, he was not a good shot. And I think about those types of things, and I think about how you, as an expert, have to figure out, I mean, where did it come from, how did it happen? Is it even possible that this gun fired that projectile and hit this victim? You have to figure that out based on what's left. And I have trouble figuring that out when I see the whole thing on film.

Pistols are rifled, but you know the term rifle. When people hear the term rifle, they think a long arm or shoulder fired arm, and those are the exception and not the norm. The line share of people that meet their end in America as a result of gunplay does a result of handgun.

different discussion for a different let me ask you this show. Yeah, but if I if somebody were to be creating hell on Earth with a firearm taking out the leader of the free world, would it better be Would it be better to use a rifle that is made to shoot if you're shooting from a long distance, a hunting type rifle or military type rifle.

basketball too, didn't he for the sixers? I think, yeah, yeah, bless his heart. You know, with rifles in particular, our

troops came back from World War One, and the cartridge that those soldiers and marines were familiar with when they got back home was referred to as the thirty out six, and thirty out six became the gold Center. Still by some measure today it is for hunting, you know, kind of mid sized game like individuals that can go out and hunt deer and maybe wild hog or you know things like this. Well, that cartridge itself had its origin

with a nineteen oh three rifle. It's a bolt action rifle that we had that all of our troops were issued. Now you talk about if someone is plotting an assassination, first off, there are examples of people that have walked up on the individuals and shot them, you know, at very close range. To presidents in particular, I can think of well, actually three if you count Lincoln, but Garfield who died and he was shot at a train station.

You had Teddy Roosevelt who was shot with a pistol and the only thing that saved his life was he had a I think it was a silver cigar case that was in his pocket and it deflected the round. He still caught shrapnel and still kept Hey. That's why Teddy Roosevelt's one of my favorite presidents. He kept on giving the speech. Yeah that I mean, you know, I mean, you take whoever you want. I'm going with Teddy Roosevelt

every time. I love Teddy. And and then of course you have you have Lincoln, who was famously assassinated, you know, with with a pistol an old darringer. So if but if you're looking for precision, and that's what a long arm gives individuals, that's generally where your mind is going to drift to. You know, somebody in a sniper's nest. You know, our troopers that are deployed all around the world, we have people that are snipers. In fact, it's actually

a term that comes from from Scotland sniper. Those were people that were game wardens and hunters out there and they invented like the gilly suit, you know, where they're wearing all the rags all over their body and they can low crawl and approach. Well, we adopted that in the military, and the military uses it for military applications. But when you're wanting to reach out a great distance, you know, you want to use a long arm as it choose to.

i'll tell you why it was developed. It was developed around about the same time as the Civil War occurred in America, and before that we were firing smooth bore muskets. And that means that you've got this huge chunk of lead that's traveling down a smooth boar barrel and it's kind of bouncing along as it goes through the barrel, and it's not making the most out of the energy that's provided by the explosion in the rear, so its ability to travel a great distance and bring power on

target drops precipitously. But if you escalate up to say, for instance, the rifled round of you know, like that fired the mini ball, You've got a fifty eight caliber round, huge chunk of metal going down range in one of these in one of these civil war weapons. That thing's rifle and it's spinning. So if you think about somebody that has taken a football, for instance, you ever see anybody and I've done it, You've probably done it. Throw football and it comes out of your hand as a

wounded duck. You've ever seen that, and it kind of flops through the air. You don't get a tight spiral on it. It's the same principle with a bullet. If you take a football and you can throw a tight spiral, it preserves energy and it gives you more distance any more accurate with it. Same thing. So if you compare a wounded duck football throw with a musket, okay, smooth bore, and then you take a rifled weapon with a tight spiral, that's kind of a simplistic way of looking at it.

And so we have long arms. And also following in the category of long arms, many times there are shotguns. And so shotguns are smooth bore, okay, but they're meant for close, close engagements, but further away than say a pistol would be usedful and they bring they put a lot of power and a lot of energy on target. So that's you know, you've got those two groups of long arms.

So the other group of weapons that we commonly encounter, particularly in investigations out on the streets, are handguns, and they break out in a modern sense. And again I'm qualifying these things in the modern sense. I'm not talking about like the weapon that President Lincoln was assassinated with, which was a muzzle loading muzzle loading derringer that you had to use a ramrod to press the you know, to get the projectile down the barrel that had to

be primed and then it was fired. I'm talking about now multi shot weapons that we encounter on the streets in investigations, and with handguns, those are generally going to

fall into two categories. So you're going to have revolvers, which old guys call them wheel guns as well, and you've seen you've seen, you know, revolvers in all manner of television shows over the years, old Westerns, you know, even detective programs from back in as late as the eighties,

because it's what cops carried. Cops had classically, they had the six inch Smith and Western thirty eight special revolver with ann iron sight and so the cylinder that the bullets and most of the time most revolvers hold six rounds. Sometimes you'll find them a whole five, and you have others that will hold more, but those are kind of outlayers.

The as the hammer is actuated and pulled back, you'll see the cylinder kind of spin and it puts it on a fresh round and you've only got six, okay, six times to fire this thing, and then you have to reload. It's kind of cumbersome. And that's the way, you know, we kind of saw this change happened back in the eighties with service weapons that police acers were carrying, and they went from revolvers, which they had carried for

years and years, to semi automatic handguns. Top of the list probably to begin with some of the ones you saw. There were two groups that you saw being employed by law enforcement agencies. To begin with, those were glocks, which everybody's heard of now it's an Austrian made weapon. It's got a polymer frame. And then there were Barrettas, which

is an Italian weapon. And the reason that Barretta was very popular was because it's what our military troops carried in all branches, because they had carried the forty five for years and years, and forty five ACP has a storied history. But again it could only hold up to seven rounds, not sufficient to the task. Weapons now the

semi automatic weapon that police officers carry. If you're watching these videos you know that are that are on YouTube and these sorts of things, and you're watching them, uh, these live shooting instances, you'll see the cop fire multiple times and it seems like it's never going to end. And that's because the magazines which hold these rounds are you know, in the double digits, these rounds and so

and then they've got multiple magazines on their belts. So when you see a cop wearing wearing their utility gear, you'll see, you know, magazine holders and you'll see them. And that's one of the skills you have to develop. You have to be able to drop drop a magazine, reload and get back into the fight. And that's one of the things that's taught in military as well. So we've got long arms, rifles and shotguns. Then we've got handguns,

which are generally gonna be revolvers. They're still revolvers that people carry. I know people that prefer for revolvers over semi automatics. And then you've got the semi automatics, your glocks, Bretta sixth hour, which I think is what the military has gone to now hk's and some of these can cost into the thousands and thousands of dollars, and they come in a variety of calibers as well. You know, Dave, I've made mention of the first autopsy I ever participated in,

which was a bludgeoning death. God had been beaten to death with a baseball bat at the hand of his brother something.

first homicide or the first death I was ever involved in as an autopsy technician was actually a bludgeoning. A god had been beaten to death by baseball with a baseball bat. The first scene that ever went on where I was the primary investigator was actually a gunshot wound. And that's you know, I know people might think, well, that's not unusual, Morgan. Well yet it is. Because you work for the corner. You handle all manners of death, and generally firearms related deaths are the least of what

you handle. You handle the fewest of those.

interesting weapon. It was a twenty two magnum revolver, which is actually a very powerful You think of a twenty two, which is that's an imperial measurement, and we can talk about calibers. Twenty two is essentially zero point two inches in circumference around the actual projectile, and that's where you get that number. But that's an imperial measurement which was given to us by the British and we adopted that. So anytime you hear caliber, that's what we're talking about.

That's an imperial measurement. But other so called measurements for

weapons are done metric. That's why you hear and you hear it in a lot of songs that are out there that popularly talking about a nine millimeter nine millimeter glock, you know, and so nine millimeter is probably the most popular round, but that measurement is done in millimeters, so and you've got ten milimeter pistols or handguns, but you know, you have rifle rounds that one of the most popular to the most popular for hunting are six millimeter and

seven millimeter. So and it's hard. There's no like, there's no debt one match for these. When you compare the imperial system, which is rooted in Great Britain, to the metric system or you know, the millimeter system, if you will, for measuring measuring rounds even you know, look, even in the mill terry, you have to learn the metric measurement for firearms. So you know, like the standard round for years and years in the military has been a five

point five to six millimeters round. That's what goes into the rifle. And it's roughly about the size believe it or not, Dave, The diameter of the circumference of the actual round itself is about roughly the size of a twenty two round. It's not that big. It's just the amount of powder or propellant that's placed into that particular round, and then the weight of the bullet is it's larger. The projectile is actually larger than say even a twenty two long rifle, and so the amount of powder that's

put behind it, the propellant. When that round hits something, it can rip it apart. And most of those rounds are what are called flangible frangible fragmenting rounds, so when they hit a target, they kind of come apart. And so you've got these tiny, little particulate rounds that are going into a body or bits of shrapnel and they're

ripping things to shreds in there as well. So there's a huge variety and it takes it takes you a while to get used to this environment, you know, to try to be able to spink to lingo because it's it's certainly a it's certainly a language all and of itself.

students this at Jack State. When you write a report, okay, I I never say in one of my reports involving gunplay,

I never say that the subject has a gunshot wound to the anterior chest, or to the posterior chest, or to the hit. I'll say that the individual has a circular or irregular shaped defect. Because if I call that, if I call that defect or that hole in the body a gunshot wound in the field, and then that

body has to make it back to the morgue. Well, when the forends of pathologist gets that the body in a in perfect conditions for examination with the surgical lights and everything, first off, they might look at that and say, yeah, that's that's not a gunshot wound. That person was pierced by something here that might resemble a gunshot wound, or this is the tail end of a laceration. It's not a gunshot wound. But yet I've gone ahead and put it in an official report. And then if the pathologist

report comes out, those two things are conflicting. When they're subpoena, you know, and they can put you on the stand and say, well, look, you know, you're a pathologist here, made a statement that this is a gunshot wound. But yet you're saying or that you said that it's a gunshot wound, but they're saying that it's something other than that. Who should we believe? And again, that's that kernel, that seed that's planted for reasonable doubts. So you have to be real careful with your.

overcast night. You can't see your hand in front of your face, but yet you're you are going to attempt to give a detailed description of something that has got little tears in it that measure maybe one centimeter. Because of the orientation of the around when it goes through the body, You're incapable of doing that in that environment.

So that's why I spoke very broadly, you know, when I would write, and I would recommend to anybody that's going into forensics that you speak very broadly about field with feeling reports, particularly when it comes to injuries, because

you don't know. One of the most embarrassing things that can happen is to have some lawyer get you hip on stand and the first you know, they'll talk to you in general terms, what your background and what's your experience and all this, and they might say, hey, look, I was looking here at your CV you know, your resume, and I see that you graduated with your master's degree in forensic science. But where'd you go to medical school.

I didn't go to medical school. But yet you've made an assessment at the scene that this is a gunshot Once. Certainly you have to have medical training in order to be that. Are you a board certified forensic pathologist? No, sir, I'm not so, even though I might be the best investigator in the world. All the while he's asking me these questions that I have to respond negatively to. Who's listening, Well,

the jury's listening. So that's why with gunshot wounds in particular, I'm a bit cagy about it because I've gotten burned. I've had friends that have really gotten burned, and I learned from forensic pathologists, you know they I had one old friends of pathologist that told me, let me bear the burden of that. You just indicate to me where you see defects in the body. It's like people will I'm amazed at when I go out on scenes, I'll have people will say, well, this is an entrance and

this is an exit wound. Well, how do you know that? How do you know that that's an entrance? Oh, because entrance is always smaller than the exit. Prove it Joe. Well, i've seen cases before. Well, I've seen a lot of cases too, and I've seen cases particularly like individuals that are struck from behind in the shoulder blade, that flat bone, and it's a very nasty injury, and it might give you the appearance that it's an exit, where it's actually

an entrance. People shot in the spiny process in their next many times that kind of blows out and it gives the impression of an exit very well might be an entrance. And so you can't make that determination in the field.

And we talked about that extensively. But you know, doctor Rose was actually involved in the autopsies of Tippett who was allegedly shutting by Oswald, and he did Oswald's autopsy as well. Interestingly enough, I believe if I'm not mistaken, you know, Dave, I think he actually did Jack Ruby's autopsy.

about the intersection. If only if only doctor Rose had been had been allowed to assess President's injuries, you know, because he would have probably, first off, he would have arrived at a different conclusion because that body would have been secured in his morgue and not be flown a thousand miles or highever the how far it is to Bethesda, you know, from from love Field, and he could have

done that assessment appropriately incorrectly. But you know, with President Kennedy shooting, that's what we would refer to as around fired from a distance, and when you're trying to assess the range of fire, you're in to another complete level as far as forensic examinations go. Dave, I tell you JFK has always been a head scratcher. It from what I can tell at this point, it will always be

a head scratcher. But you know what, we we had the advantage of always reflecting back to science, and that's what keeps us grounded.

a weapon. Yeah, how can you determine range of fire? I mean, I guess I understand stiffling, so I could understand a contact wound if you're you know, touching my again, I'm going to get But beyond that, how can you really tell how far it was?

Once you get beyond that our marker right there, there's no President Kennedy could have been shot from thirty Let's just say we'll be generous from thirty six inches out to infinity and there wouldn't be any evidence on the body. Okay, all you're going to have is a defect. Now, the one thing that you see with indeterminate range, if you're talking about a rifled round that's passing. I encourage anybody that hasn't seen the quote unquote magic bullet. That bullet

has been fired. It's got rifling on it, and you can actually see it running down the long axis. It's

just that it's so intact, you know. But that's a story. That's a story I've already told. Actually, But when you see the wound that is generated traditionally, because you know, President Kennedy's body got so kind of boogered up and orientation was all off and everything else. But if you look at an indetermined range projectile or projectile that has been fired from an indeterminate range, the only thing you're going to see is what's referred to as a friction ring.

And what that means is going back to my example of tight spiral on a football. It's spinning. Okay, well, think about a spinning This is painful to think about, all right, just this in and of itself, and you wouldn't notice it when you're being shot. But as that bullet is spinning, and it is spinning like nobody's business, all right, when it strikes. When it strikes the skin,

it actually Dave twists the skin like this. Okay, So you get this abrasion ring around a circular defect, and you'll see the little abraided area where it kind of twist. I've actually, I could have sworn before I've actually seen on the hour marker the outer margins of one of these things, little kind of hash marks that look like indication of rifling, you know, and they're kind of at a they're kind of fan shaped. Doctor told me, I was out of my mind. I wasn't really seeing that,

so I was like, oh, okay, well whatever. But anyway, it twists, It twists the skin, and that friction that's created on the skin just for that moment, you know, it it upbraids that area, it tears the skin, It in salts the skin. But beyond that, you're not going to have any powder deposition there's not going to be any debris blown out of the barrel because none of that crap is aerodynamics. So let's just say you're in that multi storied structure of the Texas school Book Suppository

Depository that you're standing. You're up there, and you're in a sniper's nest, and you're firing this round. Well, by the time that round reaches the end of the muzzle, okay, which is in a twinkling of an eye, that round is going down range and it's leaving a cloud behind it. And you can see this in high speed camera slow motion on weapons. I encourage everybody to go look these up on the inner zones out there. You see this kind of cloud that rises up out of the barrel,

and the projectile actually emerges from that. Well, just take a look in that slow and they're everywhere. When you see them, that slow motion cloud that's coming out doesn't go very far. As a matter of fact, really quickly you can see it begin to descend to the Earth. None of that stuff is has the aerodynamic qualities that a spinning lead core projectile has as it's going down range and it can stay on target for a protracted time. So it's not carrying any of that debris with it.

So when you have an indetermined range, you know that if you're in court, you know, the attorney might say, well, gee, whiz, how far away was this round or was the shooter? You know, when I don't know, I have no idea. So you're telling me with all your knowledge. Yeah, I'm telling you, based upon a lot of scientific study over the years, that it's impossible to tell because there's there's

no deposition. Now when you get into what we would refer to as we'll kind of do these backwards, it's when you're the next tier to this is going to be like an intermediate range. You look at a case of well, if you just look at, for instance, Oswald, when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the garage, you can see him, I mean, and there's that classic freeze frame where he's kind of hunched over and he's got this pained look on his face and Ruby is

extending that snubnose thirty eight caliber revolver. He's holding a revolver here and he fires it at Ruby. Well, Ruby is in kind of a and this goes to what we're trying to figure out. Also with trajectory. Ruby is kind of tilted down like this when he shot, he kind of hunches like this. You know that round actually traveled downward in his body. I mean it passed through several several organ systems. He didn't have a he didn't

have a shot, no pun intended of surviving. But that's an inner immediate round with him intermediate range, So you know, it's hard to determine from because you're seeing it. It's kind of kind of like, uh, it's kind of like

Ruby's POV, but you're behind Ruby, and it's hard to gauge distance in depth from that range. But I would say that based upon the muzzle position relative to Ruby, I mean relative to Oswald when that weapon was fired, you might see some deposition. Now, do you remember, Dave, what color sweater Ruby was wearing when he was shot?

in adjacent trauma rooms. He was adjacent to the room that the president had been brought into when they started running the code on it.

a bad habit of cutting things off. You know, you see that portrayed many times, and it's a real thing. If they preserve that sweater, and the sweater would be taken to the crime lab and they could analyze it, and they could actually use alternative lighting and chemical testing to give you the deposition of the gunshot residue that's on the outside of that sweater, and it'll give you

a range fire. So just imagine this. You're if you're firing an intermediate range, the deposition of the powder that is embedded either on an article of clothing or on skin, is going to be greatly spread out. It's kind of like a water hose, you know, when you put it on spray mode, and it kind of looks like a fountain coming out out of its spreading. For the closer

you get to the nozzle, the tighter it gets. So with that, if he's within let's just say it's eighteen inches, it might be I don't know, the deposition could be I'm just spitballing here, maybe twelve inches by twelve inches. That's the deposition that you're talking about high and low or high and wide, and that deposition is going to dictate. Now, what they would have done is they will take that same pistol that Ruby used and go to the state crime Lab and they will fire. And this is something

we have to have done by the crime lab. You turn that over to the Ballistic Section firearms examination, and they have an indoor range where they'll go and they'll take a white T shirt and it's really impressive if you've never seen this done. White T shirt, hang it up and they will fire at various ranges into fresh white T shirts. And as they get closer and closer, that deposition tightens up and tightens up. And there's always

that the defect in the sweater. This always constant. You know, it's right there, but as you're getting closer and closer, it's tightening down.

out of Oswle's body, fired from Ruby's gun. Well, that that projectile more than likely that thirty eight special round is going to be deformed in some way. It's not going to be pristine. Oh exactly.

Iron Man. That's all I'm saying.

sorry to burst your bubble. That has to be tested and scientifically, they have to do a comparison if thing were to go to trial. Of course, Uh, you know it is what it is. Uh, and you try to compare it. Now, the closer you get to where you're in a circumstance where you've got a a round that's fired, let's say, how can I say it. You've got a round that is fired at an individual, say it what would be called close range. Close range. You're going to

be within a couple of inches of the target. And buddy, when you see, when you see the damage that's done, that powder, the unburned powder in particular, rages out of that weapon, and say, if it strikes skin, you're going to have it's going to look like this is kind of disgusting. It's going to look like a huge collection of blackheads to most people the first time they see it, like a huge concentrate you're looking at you're thinking, this

is really bizarre. But of course you've got a defect right in a hole, right in the center of it, but it's surrounded by all this kind of unburned powder, and that unburned powder actually gets beneath the skin. It's there. So if you took a section of that skin and you cut it and you put it on microscopic slide, guess what When you look at that section microscopically, you can actually see the powder. And what I mean by that the unburned powder. Powder comes in different shapes depended

upon the actual granules of powder. You can have disc shape, cylindrical shape, you can have pyramidial shaped powder. And I'm talking about the individual grains of powder that come from a particular company. So that's kind of an identifier that can be used by ballistics.

and that shape is unique to them. So, you know, we try to find all of these components that we can in addition to doing regular gunshot residue testing where we're looking for chemical chemical evidence, you know, where we're looking for barium, antimony, and lead, which are components of of actual gunpowder or propelling I prefer to use the term propell and as opposed to gunpowder.

in proximity to a weapon. They did one study Dave years ago, uh, testing people that worked in an ammunition factory, and they were testing them every day as they were leaving and they're actually putting together components of large, large projectiles, and they were getting they were getting like forty five percent negatives on these individuals and even worse than even worse than that is back and this existed before I came into the field, they used to paraffine tests, which

were where you would have a suspect place their hand into warm wax and they would peel the wax off of the hands and whatever it captured. It's the same

thing as doing a tape lift. So you're looking for that residue that's contained within you know this. I don't know if you want to call it a medium or resin, whatever it is, but it's called a paraffine test. So after you get past close range, then you have what's referred to as press contact or hard contact. Dependent upon where you are and where you studied, you'll and what pathologists you've worked around. In my field, they'll call it

different things. I've heard hard contact, press contact, and most of the time you see press and hard contact wounds with self inflicted wounds. And it's most of the time I've always felt it's because the individual is purposed. They want to assure or insure rather that they are going to get the job done. Now, when you have this occur, that round that is being initiated, when it travels out of the musle, that weapon, it's creating a cavity in

the head. Okay, let's just say it's a self inflicted to the head, or you could use a sterm as well, because that happens too, and it's pressed and it's like pressed hard against the skin and it creates a seal. You know, when that weapon is discharged, it's not just the projectile coming out. We've already talked about unburned powder.

You've got smoke that's coming out. But the other thing you've got that's coming out, and the reason press gun top press contact gunshot ones are so destructive is that you've got heated gas coming out. And we all know from eighth grade physical science class that heated gas expands, and it expands at a rapid rate, so you'll get these grotesque injuries to the head. And it's not just

the projectile doing it. It's also that gas expanding inside the cranial vault and you'll see fractures that run along the suture lines. If you know what a suture line is, it's when you look at a human skull. You've got these wavy lines. We've talked about this before where the skull kind of interlocks with one another and you'll many times you'll see it literally fracture along the suture lines,

both posteriorly anteriorly laterally, and it's devastating. And then the bone after it passes through bone, those bits of bone become trapnel.

Back in the day, when we got that tape, we put it on uh and we got it at the coroner's office. We had that tape on like the most high end VCR that there was at the time. It had and I don't understand about the technology. I think multiple heads in it and so it could slow things down. Yeah, and you could see a flash inside of his mouth

and I've seen these. I've had cases where people videotape themselves and you see the cheeks expand like a chipmunk, and you'll get what a refer to as striya, which are the same as stretch marks. You'll get striya on the cheeks because it expands so fast, because the rapid expansion of the gas that it creates these these curvelinear lines that are called striya and their stretch marks essentially.

But it's an acute stretch mark. It's not like somebody's getting heavier or whatever in life and you know their limbs are beginning or the diameter of their legs are beginning to expand, or they're tummy or whatever. It's different than that. It's a real unique feature that you see. And then not to mention the damage that the round is creating as it's traveling through the body.

never blinks. I don't know who the camera operator was, but they stayed on him as he kind of slides down the wall, and you can appreciate the volume of blood that issues forth from the nose in the mouth, and a lot of that has to do with how thin the floor is of the hard palette is, you know,

leading up into the skull. It's almost eggshell like in thickness or thinness, I guess, and so it kind of it shatters like that, and the brain is so vascular, you know, you have this copious amount of blood that's coming out, and you if you listen very carefully on that tape, Dave, you can actually hear the blood flowing, which is something I've never encountered before, you know, and I was, you know, from a practitioner standpoint, I was

fascinated by that. But it's a great teaching tool because you really begin to kind of understand the power and the destructive nature of firearms. And for those of us that work in forensics, that teach forensics, or that formerly worked in our field, an understanding of firearms and their function their purpose is essential to being a successful investigator.

To understand the science and the mechanism of modern firearms, because if you don't understand these things that you're encountering out on the street, there's no telling what kind of interpretation you'll wind up making. So it's important that we always say that we're studied up. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,

and this is Bodybacks