Staged Suicide: A Southern United States Substitute for Lynching -

Homicide Detection in a Cold Case Assisted by Image Processing

Bryan R. Burnett a *

a Meixa Tech, 1624 Debann Road, Cardiff, CA 92007-1102, USA

* Corresponding author. Email address: bryan@meixatech.com

ABSTRACT

The official determination in 2008 of the manner of death of the victim was by suicide with a 12

gauge shotgun to his left head at the ear. However, an examination of the police reports, death

scene images and autopsy images and report revealed a homicide occurred. This homicide is

unusual: 1) Blowback from a contact discharge to the victim’s head was substantial, propelling

tissue as much as 47 feet (14.3 m) from the victim. 2) The shotgun’s position at discharge was

not possible for the suicide scenario. 3) The crime scene was ineptly staged to appear a suicide

occurred. 4) The staging of the crime scene continued into the scene processing. 5) Multiple

persons were involved in the homicide. 6) Image processing by Adobe Photoshop was

instrumental in determining the victim died by homicide.

KEYWORDS: Forensic Science, Homicide, Shotgun, Blowback, Suicide Staging, Image Processing

Introduction In the early morning of December 8, 2008, a few minutes prior to 5:30 AM (0530), the victim,

Billey Joe Johnson Jr., allegedly committed suicide by discharge of his 12 gauge shotgun (Sears

Model 200) to the left side of his head at his ear. The death occurred in George County, a rural

county in southern Mississippi, USA. Johnson was beside his truck on the driveway to a small

business park. According to the only witness to the shooting, police officer Joe Sullivan, “I

walked back to my vehicle got down my glasses to read the driver’s license [of the victim] and I

heard a gunshot and glass break. I looked up, the black male fell on the ground and the gun he

had in his hand fell on top of him” [1]. The time he radio reported the death was 5:30 AM

(0530). The evidence does not support Sullivan’s account.

This death scene was processed as a homicide or suspicious death. A probable suicide scene

would have limited documentation, usually a short report with a small number of scene images

and an autopsy report if performed with perhaps a few additional images [2].

The death of the victim was confirmed suicide by a Mississippi Grand Jury in a decision

published February 12, 2009, “The Grand Jury finds that Billey Joe Johnson, Jr. died from a

single shotgun blast to the left side of his head entering at the approximately location of his left

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ear.” The report went on to say considering the results of a gunshot residue test that, “…Billey

Joe Johnson Jr’s left hand was holding the barrel of the shotgun” [3]. In a letter to the parents of

Billey Joe Johnson, Jr. from the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, dated April

15, 2011 also supported the suicide scenario [4].

This shooting scene analysis described in this report utilized the discovery provided by Jonathan

Jones of Reveal–The Center for Investigative Reporting [5] which consisted of a variety of

witness and police reports, the autopsy report and numerous images of the death scene and

autopsy.

In the ten years since the victim’s death many local residents have expressed the belief that

Billey Johnson died by homicide [6]. Jonathan Jones became aware of the controversy

surrounding the death of the victim and asked the author for an evaluation. The intent of this paper is not only report the results of an analysis of a ten-year old cold case that was officially declared suicide, but to also show the value of a number of Adobe Photoshop’s tools for the analysis of the scene and autopsy images. Photoshop has proved to be indispensible for image analysis of this case as well as others (e.g., [7]).

Figure 1. (A) Image of the left side of the victim’s head showing the massive defect

caused by the 12 gauge shotgun’s discharge; Dr. Lewis, the pathologist who conducted

the autopsy, determined this is the entrance wound [8]. (B) X-ray of the victim’s head

shows lead projectiles (the bright objects) which support the determination of the

shotgun discharge entrance wound was to the left side of his head and not intraoral;

one of the shotgun pellets was at the victim’s upper jaw, overlapping his teeth. Image

enhanced in Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Levels routine. (C) Enlargement of the

area within the rectangle in B to show numerous fine lead particles that resulted from

the fragmentation of lead shot.

Autopsy The autopsy of Billey J. Johnson was performed by forensic pathologist Adele M. Lewis. She

noted the victim died from a single shotgun blast to the left side of his head entering at the

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location of his left ear (Figure 1A). The shotgun discharge was contact or near contact and the

wound track was left to right, front to back and upward. The left ear of the victim was

completely destroyed. According to the autopsy report there were no signs of a struggle or

physical altercation on the victim’s body. “The only injury was the shotgun wound as described

above” [8,9]. An additional injury to the victim was found during this investigation (see below).

An x-ray image was submitted showing multiple lead pellets and fragments within the victim’s.

head (Figures 1B and 1C). This supports pathologist Dr. Lewis’s findings that the shotgun

muzzle was at “close range” (contact or near contact) to the victim’s head [8]. The shotgun

discharge was not intraoral, although the entrance wound (Figure 1A) appears similar to an exit

wound for an intraoral shotgun discharge.

Figure 2. The shooting scene; scale drawing modified from the scene graphic provided

in the discovery. The victim, truck and bloodstains graphics were redone by the author

due to poor copy quality. The truck driver side door was open and the victim lying under

it. The red graphics/lettering by the author and the scale of the scene drawing verified.

Blue arrows indicate the locations on the Benndale Carpets sign that was hit with

blood/tissue spatter.

The death scene Images of the shooting scene and autopsy were taken by five different digital cameras (based on

file name and resolution) at different times during the day following the shooting. It is assumed

the image time stamps (found in the metafile for each image) are accurate except for the camera

which took images of the victim’s autopsy. Indeed, the image contents (lighting and blood

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drying etc) reflect the time taken. The time stamps on the images were important to document

scene staging continued during processing. Figure 2 is a graphic to scale of the shooting scene which was revised from the poor copy of the

graphic of the scene provided in the discovery. Evidence items 1 through 5 and 13 are shown

due to these items being included in the reconstruction of the shooting.

Blowback/backspatter An external contact or near contact 12 gauge shotgun discharge to the head of the victim, without

an exit wound will produce blowback from the gasses injected into the head of the victim [10].

Figure 3A shows the victim’s interior truck driver’s side door at the shooting scene. Evidence of

a blowback can also be seen by the blood and tissue from the victim’s head coating a part of the

remaining fractured mosaic window glass (Figure 3B circled area – image red enhanced by

Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Color Balance). Figure 3C, which is a close-up image of the

window (lower left in the area circled of Figure 3B), has also been red enhanced with

Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Color Balance and clearly shows blood and other tissue covering

of this part of the remaining window surface.

Figure 3. (A) The driver side interior door of the victim’s truck showing the fracture mosaic tempered glass. (B) The door window has been color adjusted by Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Color Balance to show the extensive blood/tissue spattering of the window. (C) Close-up of the window where red is enhanced in Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Color Balance to show a coating on blood and tissue at the right part of the window (circled in B). (D) The victim’s earring base attached to the window sill at arrow.

The victim’s earring post was attached to the lower window sill (Figure 3D, arrow) and its jewel

separated and deflected off the door surface to the location indicated in Figure 2 (evidence item

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13, upper right) due to the shotgun blast. The distance from the truck door to the earring jewel is

approximately 22 feet (6.7 m). No blood is associated with the surface of the door sill

surrounding the earring post indicates the earring was blown from the victim’s pinna by the

shotgun blast and was not by blowback. The earring jewel separated from its base in the shotgun

blast, bounced off the door and ended up on the pavement at the rear of the victim’s truck. The

left side of the victim’s head had to be in close proximity to the door for this to occur.

Tempered glass shards on the pavement Tempered glass, when subject to a force that fractures it, has two features: 1) The initial shock

which created the fracture mosaic (e.g., Figure 3A) and could include a partial to almost full

break-out of the glass. 2) The remaining fracture mosaic glass is fragile and subject to collapse

by vibration or touch [11].

There were two depositions of glass shards onto the pavement from the driver side window. The

first occurred from the initial breakage/fracturing where the breaking force was to the outside of

the open door (Figure 4A) and had sufficient force to project glass shards almost as far as the

rear of the truck (Figure 4B). This shatter/fracture event to the window occurred prior to the

shotgun discharge to the victim’s head. Upon the victim’s death, he fell onto the glass shards

and his body was moved to a different area of the pavement already covered with glass shards.

Sometime between 12:46 PM (1246) and 2:54 PM (1454) a portion of the fractured tempered

glass still in place on the door (Figure 4C) collapsed (Figure 4D) onto the pavement mostly

exterior to the open truck door. Some of that glass fell on the interior side of the door (compare

the armrest images (insets) Figures 4C to 4D). The force which caused this later collapse of the

tempered glass mosaic was to the interior window of the open door.

The shotgun The substantial amount of backspatter from blowback on the truck’s window means the anterior

part of the shotgun barrel also should have received backspatter of blood, bone fragments and

other tissue, which would be expected in either suicide or homicide scenarios by a contact or

near contact shotgun discharge to the head. But, the images of the shotgun (e.g., Figures 5A and

5B) show it has no associated tissue contamination. The Figure 5B inset shows no blood or tissue

within the bore of the shotgun. Just on this basis alone, another shotgun was used in this

homicide, not the victim’s shotgun.

An additional consideration is the shotgun recoil when fired. The 12 gauge shotgun has the

strongest recoil of most firearms [12]. The path of the pellets in the victim’s head and the

blowback occurring near the truck door window (Figure 3) would have the shotgun elevated off

the ground and unsupported in the suicide scenario. The close proximity of the victim’s head to

the interior driver side door window at the shotgun’s discharge would mean more than half the

shotgun would be on the exterior side of the door window. In the suicide scenario the victim

somehow managed to reach the trigger on the exterior side of the window after breaking it with

the shotgun stock butt. If assume this occurred, then upon the discharge, the shotgun recoil

would propel it completely through the widow and away from the victim. The victim’s

undamaged shotgun was on top of his body (Figure 5A).

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Figure 4: A. Graphic demonstrating the direction of breakage of the window based on the

glass shard distribution. B. Distribution of glass shards on the pavement with the body removed;

time stamp on image is 6:04 PM (1804). The glass shards around the evidence marker 21 are

from two tempered glass mosaic collapses: at the initial breaking and associated collapse and the

second collapse after 12:45 PM (1245) of the truck window to the exterior side of the open door.

The red outlined area is the demarcation of the glass shards on the driveway pavement. C. The

appearance of the truck window from the time of initial breakage at the shooting to early

afternoon (image time stamp is 12:45 PM (1245)); the circled area has the backspattered blood

and tissue from blowback. Backlighting prevents seeing this blood and tissue coating on the

window in this image (see Figure 3C). Inset: enlargement of armrest showing accumulation of

glass shards from the initial window break. D. Image that shows collapse of some of the glass

from the window which occurred between 12:45 PM (1245) and 2:54 PM (1454); the inset of the

armrest glass shards shows little change from A. This indicates the additional partial collapse of

the tempered glass mosaic was towards the exterior of the open door.

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Figure 5: The Sears M200 12 gauge shotgun. (A) Despite being identified as the

source of the fatal wound to the victim where there was substantial blowback of blood

and tissue, the shotgun had no associated blood. (B) Another view of the shotgun;

tissue and blood would be expected covering the victim’s shotgun if this was the

shotgun used in his death; inset: the bore of the shotgun at the muzzle shows no blood

or tissue.

Bloodstains on the pavement The victim collapsed immediately after the shot to his head. Figure. 6 documents his body was

moved after falling to the pavement. The bloodstain drip trail labeled 1 in Figures 6A, 6B and

6C shows a blood trail from the initial victim collapsed position leading to the part of the blood

pool where a spattering event occurred (bloodstain group 2). Blood filled the massive vessel-like

head wound (Figure 1A). The bloodspattering on the pavement (Figure 6C, circle) was due to the

victim’s head turning left while elevated and spilling blood which spattered when it hit the

pavement and continued to spatter as the blood pool quickly formed.

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Figure 6. Pavement bloodstains. (A) Image of the body of the victim from the right side

and associated bloodstains; 1: a drip trail bloodstains indicating the body was moved

from the position where he originally collapsed at the bloodstain in close proximity to his

right hand (at marker 8) in this image. The bleeding head wound documents the

movement of the body from the bloodstain just in front of the right hand to the larger

bloodstain 2. (B) As in A, but image was taken at a different angle to the body; the

shadow of the photographer is over the body. (C) Image of bloodstains 1 and 2; in

bloodstain 2 circled area a bloodspattering event occurred prior to setting the body

down in position 2. The blood came from the massive, vessel-like head wound (Figure

1A) when the head was turned to the left while elevated above the pavement poring

blood onto the pavement.

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Figure 7. Bloodstains 2 and 3 and the result of covering the body with a sheet. (A)

Image taken at 7:19 AM (0719) showing a gap in the bloodstain near the victim’s neck

(at arrow) which is not present in the images later taken of the body. (B) The

bloodstain gap at the arrow in A provides a demarcation estimation between the blood

deposited when the body was at position 2 (Figure 6) and the final position 3 of the body

shown here; bloodstain 3 originated from final position of the body. The white outlines

the extent of the bloodstain when the body was at position 2 to where the blood flow

from body position 3 (final) likely overlaps (at dashed line) the bloodstain from the victim

at position 2. Arrows point to the stains caused by blood and serum wicking from the

bloodstain by the cloth sheet placed over the body.

The demarcation between the bloodstains deposited when the body was at position 2 and the

final position (position 3) can be seen in Figure 7A at arrow. The extent of bloodstain 2 is

outlined in Figure 8B. The dashed line approximates where bloodstain 2 merged with bloodstain

3.

Bloodstains on the victim’s face. The bloodstains on the face of the victim (Figure 8) provide additional evidence for assailant

movement of the body immediately after the fatal shot. The dirt on the victim’s forehead (Figure

8A, white circled area) indicates his left forehead came into contact with the pavement. The

black arrows in Figure 8A show the blood flow directions. The bloodstains on victim’s right

face show his head was face up and at approximately 45 degrees to the pavement for a short

time. This blood, which originated from his mouth, flowed along his cheek and then to the

ground. This blood likely contributed to the bloodstain trail 1(Figure 6), but the major source for

bloodstain trail 1 is likely from the shotgun wound (Figure 1A).

Figure 8A (white arrows) shows a large blood smear likely by the hand of an assailant. Its dried

appearance, similar to the large blood flow from the victim’s mouth to his right ear, indicates

these two bloodstains occurred within a short time, likely seconds, of each other. The victim’s

head was probably initially near the evidence marker 8 in Figure 6A, immediately following the

shotgun discharge.

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The Y-shaped bloodstain on the victim’s left face (Figure 8B), which originated from shotgun

wound, also indicates changes in the head positions within seconds following the wounding. The

base of the Y bloodstain (Figure 8B) shows the victim’s head was face down immediately after

the wounding contacting the pavement. This was followed by the head position momentarily

becoming vertical (the left arm of the Y-shape bloodstain), which was followed by the head

angle changing to a third position (the right arm of the Y-shaped bloodstain). The latter blood

flow is at the same angle as the blood flow from the victim’s mouth on his right face (Figure

8A).

Figure 8. (A) Bloodstains on the victim’s face; image take at 12:45 PM (1245); black

arrows indicate direction of blood flow when each bloodstain was created. The head

had changed positions during the staging of the body. In addition, the victim’s forehead

came into contact with dirt (circled). The white arrows point to a blood smear which

occurred immediately post mortem, likely by an assailant’s hand when the body was

being staged. (B) Transfer bloodstains (white arrows): time stamp on this image was

7:17 AM (0717) or within two hours of the shooting; the bloodstream from the victim’s

left nostril shown in A had not yet occurred. There were three changes in the body

position reflected by the Y- shaped bloodstain, which followed the initial source

bloodstream from the gunshot wound. Moreover, these bloodstreams from the wound

could not have occurred in the found body position. The transfer bloodstains occurred

prior to the bloodstreams. The black arrows show the directions of the blood flow.

Image color adjusted by Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Hue-Saturation.

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The victim’s hands. The hands of the victim had dirt on them (Figures 9A and 9B) indicating these surfaces shown in

the images had been in contact with the pavement during the staging of the body. The right

hand’s knuckles of the victim (Figure 9C) show abrasions that were not detected during autopsy.

The victim appeared to have been in a fist fight prior to his death although he could have

obtained these abrasions in a high school football game several days previously. Prior to the

creation of the two arms of the Y-shaped bloodstain, multiple transfer bloodstains (Figure 8B,

white arrows) are on the victim’s left face, under the two arms of the Y-shaped bloodstain. These

transfer bloodstains occurred prior to the creation of the Y-shaped bloodstain. The victim’s body

was being manipulated immediately after the shotgun discharge.

Figure 9. A. Left hand of the victim showing this part of the hand was in contact with

the road pavement where it picked up dirt. B. Right hand of the victim; the bloodstain at

arrow has dirt associated; the outline area enlarged in C. Arrow points to road dirt. C.

An enlargement of the outlined area in B showing the victim’s knuckles were abraded; a

small amount of skin was more deeply abraded at arrow. Image gamma adjusted by

Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Levels.

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Bloodstain modification by body covering sheet

The body of the victim was covered with a sheet soon after his death. The consequence of the

sheet covering the body is the modification of the bloodstain. Figure 7A is an image of the

unmodified bloodstain. Figure 7B, taken more than four hours later, shows the result of the

placing a sheet over the body. Blood and serum wicked by the body-covering sheet created

blood/serum stains (Figure 7B at arrows) from the large blood pool.

Love card on the truck’s instrument panel Figure 10 shows a 3 X 5 inch card on the instrument panel area of the victim’s truck at three

different times during the shooting scene processing. This was a hand-written love note (Figure

11A). Figure 10A, an image taken at 7:09 AM (0709), shows the position of the card on

instrument panel of the victim’s truck where the victim did not placed the card there simply

because it is not in a stable position. The card also had been bent (Figure 10A, arrow). An

image taken at 9:24 AM (0924) (Figure 10B) shows the card had been moved more onto the

instrument panel and flattened. The position of the card at 11:47 AM (1147) shows it had been

moved again. Despite the possibility the card could offer critical evidential information in this

case, it was not put into evidence.

Figure 10. Images taken at different times of the victim’s truck instrument panel with the love card. (A) Image taken at 7:09 AM (0709) approximately 1.5 hours after the victim’s death; the image was out of focus. However, there is enough focus and resolution to show the card is bent at the arrow and positioned with its left side propped on the side of the instrument panel and its right lower corner on the steering column base bracket. Image sharpened in Photoshop/Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask. (B) Image taken at 9:24 AM (0924) and is enlarged by pixel addition (Photoshop Image//Image Size/Pixel Dimensions – pixels added), but due to low resolution of the original image, is pixilated. The card is now fully on the instrument panel. It is in this card position that a secondary transfer bloodstain occurred (Figure 11B). (C) By 11:47 AM (1147), the card had been again moved from the position shown in B.

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Figure 11 is an image taken of the card. As of this writing the origin of the card is

unknown and who “Shelley” is. The bloodstain on the upper left of the card (Figure

11B) is a transfer bloodstain. There was enough blood associated with the transfer blood for

there to be secondary transfer (Figure 11B, at upper pair of white arrows). The source is from

the edge of the card and not backspatter. The blood transfer to the instrument panel surface

occurred when it was in its second position (Figure 10B). This transfer likely occurred in the

immediate aftermath of the shooting where the person who placed the card had been blood

contaminated from the victim. The poor focus of image Figure 10A and the card’s relative

brightness makes this bloodstain, if present at this time, not detectable.

Figure 11. (A) The instrument panel love card; the card part of the image (isolated from the rest of the image by Photoshop’s Magic Wand) was gamma adjusted in Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Levels to accentuate the handwriting; the upper left corner (in square) is a transfer bloodstain. (B) The enlargement (Photoshop/Image//Image Size/Pixel Dimensions – pixels added) of the left upper edge of the card shows a transfer bloodstain which has an edge accumulation of blood that secondarily transferred to the instrument surface (upper pair of white arrows). This occurred at the time the card attained the position shown in Figure 11B. The pattern of the transfer corresponds to an apparent under-card edge blood accumulation on the card (at lower pair of white arrows). The bloodstains at the red arrows are associated with the main transfer, but had just a small amount of blood transfer.

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Reconstruction The victim drove into the driveway of the Benndale Carpets store, followed by police officer

Sullivan’s vehicle. Upon stopping, the victim got out of his truck, leaving his vehicle’s door

open (Figures 2 and 3A). Upon leaving his vehicle, he was attacked by two, likely more,

assailants to subdue him due to his well-developed physical shape. The struggle with his

attackers started away from the truck or he was pulled from the truck. There appeared to have

been no physical contact with the quite dirty truck (Figure 12) during the attack. At this point, an

assailant proceeded to the front left of the truck so that the truck’s door was between him and the

victim struggling with the assailants and thrust the muzzle of a 12 gauge shotgun through the

window projecting tempered glass shards toward the rear of the truck (Figure 4B). The victim

was punching his assailants, abrading his right-hand knuckles (Figure 9C) although he could

have received these abrasions during a football game several days previously. It appears the

physically associated victim/assailants were not within the projection area of the glass when its

breakage occurred due to only one glass shard detected on the victim’s clothing in the scene

images.

The victim was maneuvered by his assailants within approximately one foot (30 cm) of the open

interior truck door. The assailant’s 12 gauge shotgun was discharged, through the previously

broken truck door window, with the muzzle in contact or near contact to the left side of the

victim’s head. The discharge of the shotgun produced a blast which dislodged the victim’s

earring from his pinna with sufficient force to not only separate the earring’s jewel from its base,

but embed the earring base into the vinyl of the truck door’s window sill (Figure 3D). The

earring jewel bounced off the door to its location at the rear of the truck (Figure 13).

Within millseconds of the shotgun’s discharge into the victim’s head, blowback occurred [13].

Blowback of the gunshot gases with blood, bone and other tissue (backspatter) occurs with a

contact or near contact gunshot discharge to a victim’s head [10,14].

If there is no exit wound, the blowback through the entry wound can be massive with a 12 gauge

shotgun as occurred in this case where it sent tissue as much as 47 feet (14.3 m) from the source

(Figure 13). The area of tissue projection from the source to evidence item 3 and the east edge of

the Benndale Carpets sign is about 60 degrees which projecting back on the triangular area to the

blowback origin would put the source less than one foot (30 cm) from the interior truck door

window (Figure 13). Tissue was projected through the iris-like broken window as well as onto

the remaining fractured window (Figure 3C). The shooter and his shotgun were also hit with

blood and tissue backspatter.

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Figure 12. Estimated locations of the body positions during the process of staging; the

sheet used to cover the body is to the right of the body. Image taken at 7:18 AM (0718).

Following the discharge of the shotgun into the victim’s head, he vertically collapsed into

position 1 (Figure 12) with his head down, a bloodstream going to his face (Figure 8B) and his

forehead momentarily on the pavement (Figure 8A – dirt on his forehead). Transfer bloodstains

were under these bloodstreams (Figure 8B), which indicates the body was handled by a blood-

contaminated assailant immediately after the shotgun discharge.

The Y-shaped bloodstain (Figure 8B) reflects the blood flow that resulted in the multiple

positions of the head. The smeared bloodstain at the right side of the victim’s face (Figure 8A, at

white arrows) indicate an assailant who handled the body was contaminated with the victim’s

blood. The blood transfer from assailant to victim (Figure 8B at white arrows) occurred during

the early staging of the victim’s body prior to the creation of the Y-shaped blood flow.

The moving of the body from position 1 to position 2 (Figure 12) left a trail of blood on the right

side of the body (Figure 6, at 1) which came from both the shotgun wound and the blood flow

from the victim’s mouth down his cheek and to the ground (Figure 8A). At body position 2

(Figure 6) is a large bloodstain that has bloodspatter around its periphery. This bloodspatter was

created when the elevated victim’s head was tilted to its left spilling blood from the vessel-like

gap in the victim’s head (Figure 1A) before placing the body down where additional blood from

the wound added to this blood pool which flowed west (Figure 7). The body was again moved to

its final position (Figure 12, position 3) where the blood flow from the head at body position 2 is

joined by the blood flow at body position 3 (Figure 7A, at arrow). The demarcation of the two

blood flows is estimated in Figure 7B.

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Figure 13. Trajectory of the backspattered tissue from blowback for the contact or near

contact discharge of the 12 gauge shotgun to the victim’s left head. Based on evidence

items 1 through 5, which are pieces of tissue and a piece of glass and the bloodspatter

on the Benndale Carpets sign is approximately 60 o from the truck’s side.

The staging of the body was completed with placing of the victim’s shotgun on the body (Figures

5 and 6A). The victim’s shotgun was not used in this homicide because 1) no backspattered

blood/tissue was detected on the shotgun or within its bore at the muzzle and 2) the unsupported

shotgun in the suicide scenario should have ended up after the discharge away from the body

because of recoil.

The victim’s position within a foot (30 cm) of the truck door when shot would not allow for the

suicide discharge of the shotgun. In addition, the body is directly under the open door of the

truck (Figure 12) also not supportive of the suicide scenario.

The 12 gauge casing shell could have been transferred from assailant’s shotgun to the victim’s

shotgun. This homicide reconstruction predicts the casing in the victim’s shotgun was fired by

another shotgun. Examination of the firing pin and breach-face marks on the 12 gauge shotgun

casing recovered from the victim’s shotgun and comparison to test-fired casings from that

shotgun might show it was not fired by that shotgun. A firearm examiner’s report was not

included with the discovery examined by the author.

The final act of one of the assailants at the scene was the placing of a 3 x 5 inch card to the left of

the truck’s steering wheel column (Figure 10A). The card’s lower half was bent (Figure 10A, at

arrow). During the processing of the scene by the police and criminalists, by 9:24 AM (0924),

the card had been moved from its unstable position (Figure 10A) to be directly on the instrument

panel (Figure 10B) and flattened. Before 11:47 AM (1147), the card was again moved (Figure

10C).

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The transfer blood on the card shows blood was not directly from backspatter, but was from the

person, not the victim, who put the card there. The apparent flattening of the card during the

processing of the scene indicates a processor or official who had access to the scene was “fixing”

it.

Conclusions

The victim’s death was by homicide. There were multiple assailants involved in his death: one

person firing the shotgun (not the victim’s shotgun), two or more persons holding the victim and

positioning him to be shot near the interior part of the open truck door. The bloodstain evidence

(Figure 6) shows the body was moved twice (Figure 12) following the discharge of the shotgun

and prior to law enforcement, other than police officer Sullivan, arriving on scene.

The crime scene continued to be staged during its processing. A scene processor or a person with

access to the scene assisted in staging the scene by moving the love card (Figures 10 and 11) and

then apparently removing it from the truck’s dashboard. The love card was not put into

evidence.

Image Processing Adobe Photoshop is indispensible tool for the examination of the crime scene and autopsy images. For this case:

Changed image gamma and pixel spread (Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Levels - most of

the images, especially Figure 9C). This tool was used in the detection of a fraudulent

autopsy photograph in another case [7].

Enhanced scene graphics by direct drawing, lettering and external graphics pasting (truck

image: Photoshop – drag and drop) in (Figures 2 and 13).

Enhanced an image feature by accentuation of a color.

(Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Color Balance – Figures 3B and 3C).

Changed the color balance (Photoshop/Image/Adjustments/Hue/Saturation – Figure 8B).

The drawing lines, circling image features and arrows in Photoshop (e.g., Figures 6C, 8

and 9).

Enlarged features in images (Photoshop/Image/Image Size, e.g., Figures 4C (inset), 4D

(inset) and 5B (inset)). High image resolution allows such enlargements with pixilation.

Grouped images of different resolutions and subject distances from the camera and

adjusting to show changes in a scene feature (Photoshop/Image/Image Size, Figures 7

and 10).

Without Photoshop and high image resolution many of the details of the analysis presented in

this report would not have been identified. Additionally, the image timestamps were used to

document scene feature changes that occurred during the processing of the shooting scene

(Figures 4C and 4D, 7 and 10).

18

For cold cases where images (at greater than 3 M pixels) were taken of the crime scene as well as

autopsy, skilled image processing could provide valuable evidence to an analysis as was shown

in this case.

Disclaimer. “Remember that a reconstruction is the putting together the physical evidence and

eyewitness accounts into a meaningful scenario that best explains a crime scene. There is always

uncertainty, where new or missed evidence might significantly alter that scenario.” Joseph

Orantes, former head of the San Diego Police Crime Laboratory (ca. 1996).

Compliance with ethical standards

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals.

Disclosure statement

This work was performed pro bono. No proprietary contracts exist for its publication. There are

no restrictions on its publication or any other conflicts of interest.

Funding

Funding for this research was by the author. The pro bono work was on this case was for Reveal:

The Center for Investigative Reporting (Oakland, California, USA) . There are no restrictions on

the publishing of this work.

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19

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