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Seventeen Hairs | The State's Car Wash Theory | The Hair Evidence | So Many Unanswered Questions | Scratch Marks Found Inside the Trunk | The Alleged "Shoe Print" on the Trunk Lid | The Police Uniform Theory | N.C. Department of Transportation Map | Salisbury Telephone Book | Time Line | The Tape Evidence | Ballistics Evidence - Gunnarsson | Kay Weden and I Meet | An Unbelievable Theory | Shirley Scott & the 404(b) Hearing | Gunnarsson Alive? | Who was Viktor Gunnarsson | Three Strange Men | A Confession to Gunnarsson's Murder | Robbie Smith | The Missing Key | Brandon Shelton's Confession to Investigators? | One Puzzling Question | Coincidences? You be the Judge | Death of Catherine Miller | The Miller Evidence | Rex Allen Keller, Jr. | Beth Pitts | Kay Weden - Jason Weden | A Suspect in the Miller Murder | Still So Many Unanswered Questions
Ballistics Evidence - Gunnarsson
At trial the state called Agent Al
Langley of the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, an expert in
ballistics. He testified that the bullets removed from Gunnarsson were
.22 caliber bullets, fired from a .22 caliber firearm (Volume II, TP.
617). He also testified that he could not eliminate any firearms that
could have fired the bullets removed from the victim due to the fact the
bullets did not have complete land and groove structures on them (Volume
II, TP. 6l7-6l8).
Agent Langley’s trial testimony was
consistent with his official laboratory report filed on March 29, 1994.
In his laboratory report, Agent Langley listed the bullets from
Gunnarsson as Q-1 and Q-2 (Q stands for questioned sample). Langley
wrote:
Q-1 – passed through a hard object and lacks any
microscopic detail consistent with passage through a firearm barrel.
Land and Groove structure not visible.
Q-2 – Although badly deformed, it does have some
striate (scratches) present. No land and groove structure visible.
Note: Agent Langley’s conclusion was
that he could not determine if both bullets from Gunnarsson were even
fired from the same firearm.
Agent Langley also testified that the
bullets from Gunnarsson could not have
been fired
from a Dan Wesson revolver,
however, they could have been fired from a Ruger .22 caliber rifle as
well as ten to twelve different models and brands of .22 caliber
weapons. Special Agent Langley, the state’s ballistic expert, could not
determine if the bullets removed from Gunnarsson were fired from a rifle
or pistol (Volume II, TP. 623-625).
From the state’s own expert witness it
was clear that no particular brand of .22 caliber firearm could be
linked to any weapon that could have been used to kill Gunnarsson. The
most the state could say at trial was that Gunnarsson was shot with some
type of .22 caliber weapon, once in the left temple and once in the
right neck with shots coming from different directions (TP. 1177)(
TP.1139-1142).
One fact is clear from the state’s
evidence developed at trial. The state never presented any evidence
that put me in possession of a .22 caliber weapon that could be
connected to Gunnarsson’s death.
However, a man named Brandon Shelton
confessed repeatedly that he shot and killed Viktor Gunnarsson with a
.22 caliber pistol he borrowed from his neighbor. Even after being made
aware of this evidence, investigators never tried to recover or test
this weapon to see if they could match the bullets removed from
Gunnarsson to prove or disprove this was the murder weapon.
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