Well, it just goes to show you: you can’t rely on snippets of a trial to reach a conclusion about it. In the Dossett-Leath trial I had not heard until today the facts about the “final bullet.” Now I’m very puzzled indeed.

Prosecution expert, Donald Carmen, testified that the revolver used to kill the victim was loaded with two different types of bullets (identifiable only by the casings?). The fatal bullet had one type of casing, but the casing found in the “twelve o’clock” position in the chamber was of a different type. Based on this, Carmen argued that a bullet fired into the mattress was the final shot fired, not the bullet that killed him. If so, the death could not have been suicide.

Defense expert, Celia Hartnett, testified that in her opinion the bullet in the mattress was the first bullet fired. But I did not hear an explanation from her of the bullet casings.

Why wasn’t the issue of matching the bullets with the casings raised at trial? I know it’s possible to match a bullet with the tool marks on the inside of a gun barrel, that is, that they can match bullets and casings with guns. But can they match casings with bullets? If so, did the crime lab match the bullets in the Dossett-Leath case with the casings found in the gun?

It sounds to me as if the forensic investigators relied on the position of the casings in the gun chamber to decide the order in which the bullets were fired. But unless they can match the casings with the bullets, it doesn’t mean a thing.

Or what am I missing? I will definitely have to research this issue. It makes for a great fictional plot.