an elderly man is shot dead in front of his family at a July 4th celebration no one knows where the bullet came from how can police track down his killer the charismatic leader of the Black Panthers is killed in a police raid his supporters say he was assassinated the police claimed they shot him in self-defense can a forensic expert determine who is lying a child dies in a drive-by shooting can a state-of-the-art computer link evidence from this crime to another and win a conviction it takes a split second for a gun to deliver death solving the crime takes much longer but with increasing speed expertise and accuracy forensic detectives are zeroing in on their deadly target [Music] in Bloomingdale Illinois a small town 40 miles northwest of Chicago July 4th 1989 began like any other Independence Day like people all across America families and friends gathered to celebrate the country's birthday by relaxing and holding the traditional backyard barbecue kids amused themselves with sparklers while eagerly waiting for the Sun to set and the town fireworks display to begin on the picnic grounds a carnival provided an endless array of diversions something for everyone to enjoy but for one Bloomingdale family the celebration ended in tragedy in a field near the picnic grounds the family joined a crowd gathered to await the fireworks the grandfather pastime playing with his grandchildren then without warning he tumbled out of his chair his wife thought he had a heart attack two off-duty detectives happen to be picnicking with their own families nearby they rushed to offer assistance when they turned over the man's body they found a bloody wound beneath his ribs a bullet hole this 64 year old grandfather had been shot dead shock was followed almost immediately by mystification no one had heard a shot or seen anything a search of the field came up empty no gun not even a spent cartridge could be found the killing was the most baffling case the Bloomingdale police ever encountered who had shot the man and why unraveling the mystery forging a link between victim and killer would demand all the ingenuity forensic experts could muster lieutenant Richard Vaughn is the ballistics examiner at the DuPage County Sheriff's Department as soon as an autopsy had been performed the Bloomingdale police called him in the coroner confirmed that a bullet had struck the victim on the right side then penetrated beneath the ribcage causing his death he also recovered the bullet fortunately it had not hit bone and was in near pristine condition Vaughn's initial task was to try to establish what kind of gun had fired it so he and detectives could begin to look for the gun and ultimately its owner under his scrutiny the bullets size and weight and any physical marks could provide vital information the evidence bullet in this case the first question would be what caliber is it caliber is determined by the weight of the bullet and by the diameter of the bullet Vaughn started by weighing the bullet on a digital balance then he measured it with an instrument called a micrometer when the process was completed he determined the bullet was a 44 caliber it had come from one of the most powerful handguns on the market a 44 magnum revolver several companies manufacture such weapons Vaughn had to determine the make and model of the one that shot the fatal bullet he placed the bullet under a microscope and examined its rifling characteristics all guns leave a series of spiral grooves on a bullet as it speeds down the barrel the number of grooves their width and whether they twist to the left or right varies with the manufacturer this particular bullet had six grooves and six lands the raised regions in between they spiraled along the bullet with a right-hand twist snap-on turned to a device called a measuring projection unit it enabled him to accurately determine the widths of each land and groove armed with this information Vaughn turned to a computer database called the general rifling characteristics file maintained by the FBI it contains information about thousands of weapons feeding in the caliber number and width of lands and grooves and the directional twist of the bullet enabled him to identify the probable make of the gun we had a groove with measurement of 0.12 nine thousandths of an inch when we then refer to the 44 Magnum caliber category you will note that the probable make and model of firearm that could have fired the evidence bullet was a fire manufactured by Sturm Ruger and the model would be the Red Hawk model within two hours Vaughn developed a vital piece of evidence the gun was a strum Ruger Redhawk 44 Magnum but a search of local gun shops turned up no record of any such weapon being sold Vaughn decided the only way to trace the killer was to find where the bullet had been fired from with this measurement an ammunition manual told him that a Ruger Redhawk 44 Magnum has a maximum range of about a mile and a half but the chances of locating where the bullet had been fired in an area that large would be next to impossible to reduce the search area Vaughn went back to the site of the killing to reconstruct the incident all that he required was a mannequin a lawn chair and a wooden dowel he seated the mannequin in the same place and position as the victim then he inserted the dowel through its body in the precise angle of the bullet wound the doll rod now represents the actual trajectory of the bullet since we have an entrance wound here on the right side and the bullet was recovered on the left side you'll note that the doll rod is pointing in this direction here we will now refer to this as the alleged flight path of the bullet the dowel pointed roughly Northwest if Vaughn was right that was the direction from which the bullet had been fired back in his lab he began to map out the area where the police should concentrate their search this is a Bloomingdale Township map which I was able to pick up at the highway department which I took to the scene and it demonstrates or depicts the search area you'll note this area here is the open field in which the spectators were seated waiting for the fourth of July fireworks to occur in this area here the decedent was seated in a chair here now we had determined by a quadrant that our search area was going to be to the north and northwest but from where in this search area had the bullet been fired Vaughan's references told him the muzzle velocity of a Red Hawk is 1,200 feet per second but from the 15 inch deep wound in the dead man a medical examiner estimated the bullet slowed down to less than 700 feet per second when it hit with the help of a computer ballistics expert Vaughn calculated how far the bullet must have traveled for its velocity to have been reduced to this amount we came to realize that the impact velocity being approximately 450 feet to 700 feet per second that we would have to concentrate our search in an area between 500 yards and 700 yards so our search area would have been in this span right here so what we did is we actually established a cone of origin if you will where we would focus our search from this line depicted here to this roadway which is depicted here after narrowing the search area Vaughn and police combed the neighborhoods between 500 and 700 yards northwest of the picnic ground they conducted door-to-door interviews searching for any evidence that a large caliber gun had been fired eventually they arrived at a residence on Lawrence Avenue during a search of the backyard they made a crucial discovery in a corner was a 55-gallon drum perforated with holes Vaughn felt they could have been made by 44 caliber bullets the edges showed the little sign of rust suggesting they were new and they've been made by the same Magnum that killed the elderly man to find out Vaughn had to recover one of the bullets and compare it to the bullet from the dead man he relied once again on dowels to point him in the right direction with luck they'd lead him to a bullet we have evidence that the shots were fired at an angle where they entered a little bit higher than they exited you also note that the metal on this side that there's an indentation here that the actual metal folds inside which is indicative of the this beam where the bullet entered and on the other side we have evidence of the bullet exiting where the metal fold is actually folding towards the outside so this is indicative of the bullet exiting so we're gonna take this dowel rod here we're gonna reconstruct the trajectory in other words the flight path of the bullet from the time it struck the 55-gallon drum until it exits again you can see the actual metal around the periphery of the hole and the fact that it's folded out is indicative that this is an exit so this would demonstrate that this bullet continuing in a straight straight flight path would most likely have hit the grass somewhere in here so what we're gonna have to do is focus our search on this area we're gonna have to conduct a grid search Vaughn and detectives spread out to find a bullet despite their thoroughness they found nothing perhaps the barrel had been moved since the shots were fired through it if so metal detectors would be required to search a larger area then one of the deputy sheriff's had an idea perhaps the shooters had been burning logs in the barrel while using it as a target maybe the bullets were in the nearby pile of ashes he's sifting through the cinders and found what he was looking for if Richard Vaughan could prove the bullet came from the same gun that killed the elderly man he'd have the break he needed when the man died in a picnic ground in Bloomingdale Illinois on July 4th police had only two clues the bullet recovered at autopsy and the wound had left behind now ballistic examiner Richard Vaughn had a second bullet found near the 55-gallon drum a comparison of the bullets would tell him if they came from the same gun every Ruger Redhawk Magnum leaves similar rifling marks on a bullet six lands and grooves with a right hand twist but every gun also leaves its own unique individual signature on the bullets at fires produced by tiny irregularities in the rifling the bullet found in the drum was deformed by the impact but Vaughn was still able to discern a series of distinguishing marks they were enough to conclude it came from the same weapon that killed the victim [Music] the net was closing in but an important question remained could a bullet fired from the backyard travel unobstructed for nearly a half mile to the picnic grounds Vaughn enlisted the help of an engineering firm to survey the bullets likely path they recorded ground elevations and the positions and heights of every house and tree between the Lawrence Avenue residents and the picnic grounds then they constructed a diagram the red line here demonstrates the calculated trajectory of the fatal bullet the dark line here demonstrates the terrain we do have documented here the dwellings that fell within the line of the trajectory of the fatal bullet what we were able to determine was that this particular residence for an example the bullet went directly to the right of it but this is indicates where the barrel of the firearm was this is the fence that was at the back of the property of the suspects property and this is the area where the decedent was seated on its half mile journey to the picnic grounds were many potential obstacles amazingly the bullet missed everyone but would it still possess enough power to kill once it got there to make his case Vaughn had to prove it could he turned to wound ballistics expert Martin Fackler who had devised a standardized way to test how far a bullet penetrates human flesh when traveling at various speeds the depth of the wound depends on the velocity of the bullet to simulate the penetrating power of a bullet after a half mile flight some gunpowder is removed to slow it down to between 400 and 700 feet per second this is referred to as a bullet inertia puller and we're going to use this to pull and separate the bullet from the cartridge case so that we are able to actually remove the Gunpowder from the cartridge case one carefully tips out a measured amount of the Gunpowder it's a trial and error process empty out some powder fire around measure the bullets speed if it's too high remove a little more gunpowder if it's too low remove a little less from the next round to ensure that the bullet impacts the block at the intended velocity its speed is measured with an electronic timer this is a chronograph this is used to measure the speed of a moving projectile it is nothing more than a timer and the timer is started by the shadow of a bullet passing between these first two rods and the timer is stopped by the shadow of bullet passing between the second two rods the speed and feet per second of the projectile is then recorded in the front of the machine finally when everything is set the test bullet is fired into the gelatin firing in the hole the bullet traveled 15 inches almost identical to the depth of the fatal wound what's more like the bullet found in the victim it had not deformed or mushrooms the test proved that the bullet had enough power to kill the man from a half mile away further evidence that the shot had been fired from Lawrence Avenue the results of Vaughn's test gave assistant state's attorney Joe Burkett grounds to serve a search warrant on Robert Logsdon resident of the home where the drum was found Logsdon admitted he and his girlfriend held a party on July 4th first he denied owning a handgun as a convicted felon it was illegal for him to possess one he lied about virtually everything until he was confronted with facts that were known to us that we have put put in the warrant and he ultimately confessed and implicated his girlfriend as well in the shooting under pressure from briquetting Logsdon produced a 44 caliber strum Ruger Redhawk he later confessed and revealed the events of his party that it started ordinarily enough a barbecue for a few close friends sometime in the afternoon Logsdon had gone into the house to fetch his Ruger Redhawk a jug of water was placed on the 55-gallon drum as a target Logsdon fired off five rounds one hid the jug but four missed and hit the drum instead then he handed the gun to his girlfriend who shot missed the jug and drum completely from Logsden statement bond determined that the girlfriend fired the fatal bullet because she was shorter than Logsdon she tilted the gun higher the increased angle gave the bullet a trajectory high enough to reach the picnic grounds Logsdon pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a handgun to possessing a stolen weapon and to involuntary manslaughter his girlfriend also admitted firing the gun and likewise pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter Logsdon was sentenced to six years his girlfriend received 90 days plus probation was really just a tremendously successful investigation because as with any murder or any homicide police police officers and prosecutors don't take holidays and we worked closely with the Sheriff's Office the coroner's office Bloomingdale Police Department sergeant Vaugn and the crime lab - all everybody did an excellent job in Bloomingdale victim and killer were completely unaware of each other's existence and were a half mile apart it took the tools of forensic science and the dedication of law enforcement professionals and ballistics experts to bridge the gap the Bloomingdale death was a tragic accident caused by carelessness and an astonishing twist of fate its randomness made it a challenge to solve in Chicago during the turbulent 1960s an investigator struggled with a different challenge a political activist lay dead was he killed in self-defense or assassinated the bullet riddled walls held the answer [Music] December 4th 1969 4:45 a.m. 14 police officers and picked by Illinois State Attorney Edward Henry hem approached an apartment in Chicago's Oak Park area the heart of the city's black ghetto they were about to embark on what would become one of the most controversial events in Chicago's history the first-floor apartment was occupied by members of the Black Panther Party a militant left-wing organization that preached social revolution as the main group of police under the front a smaller force came in at the back 15 minutes later the tiny two-bedroom apartment was laced with 100 bullets when the smoke cleared two young panthers were dead four more were injured two of them seriously two policemen received superficial wounds the raid yielded a cache of arms 19 guns and boxes of ammunition among the Dead was Fred Hampton age 21 the charismatic leader of the Panthers Illinois chapter Hampton was the 28 black panther killed by police in less than two years the Black Panthers emerged in Oakland California a product of the 1960's social unrest while black leaders such as Martin Luther King advocated civil disobedience and political action to advance civil rights the Panthers seemed prepared to use violence if necessary the December 4th raid quickly became a media event as the Panthers and the authorities gave radically different accounts of what happened Pan Rihan claimed the police were serving a legitimate search warrant when the Panthers started shooting when the police officers announced their office they were fired upon in a film demonstration the police gave their account of the raid in this version panther mark Clarke was sitting in a chair in the living room he fired a shotgun through the front door as police approached police then burst in and shot him dead as more Panthers began shooting the exchange escalated there was three shots fired from the rear bedroom they were directed directly at the back door as I was coming in I backed out again according to police when they entered Hamptons bedroom they found him in bed lying on his stomach he opened fire with a 45 caliber automatic and a shotgun in self-defense they shot him twice in the head but the Black Panthers told a different tale the police burst in without warning started shooting and killed mark Clark fired only after being fired upon nobody's ever used away mortally stormed in from the back found Fred Hampton asleep and shot him twice in the head before he had a chance to wake up Hamptons girlfriend was in bed with him when the raid began do have sleep I looked up and I saw bullets coming I'm gonna look like the front of the apartment from the kitchen area they were pigs just shoot when he looked up just looked up you didn't say a word he didn't move stuff moving his head up he laid his head back down the Panthers were convinced that Fred Hampton was assassinated and that police had launched a full-scale cover-up Panther lawyer skip Andrew acted as their spokesman anyone who went through that apartment and examined the evidence that was remaining there could come to only one conclusion and that is that Fred Hampton 21 years old and a member of a militant well-known militant group was murdered in his bed probably as he lay asleep police arrested the surviving Panthers and charged them with several offenses including attempted murder to defend the Panthers their lawyers needed evidence to support their version of the raid they turned to ballistics expert Herbert McDonald he seemed an unlikely choice more than once he had investigated gunfights between the police and black radical groups he usually cited with the police but I understood it was a shootout similar to the ones that investigated before in the Republic of new Africa and Fred Ahmad Evans and others so I expected this would be another black militant group who were in the wrong and the police were in the right as MacDonald saw his role it was to decide whether the police or the panther account of the raid was near the truth to determine this he would have to reconstruct the raid from bullet holes and spent bullets in the apartment it would take all of McDonald's skill to find out what happened he entered the apartment through a small foyer which led to the living room Mark Clark the first Panther to die had been shot here beyond the living room were two bedrooms Fred Hampton had died in the farther one finally at the back lay the kitchen through which the rear contingent of Hanrahan's force had entered McDonald started his investigation in the living room I spent 10 and a half hours collecting evidence taking photographs and observing the trajectories of various bullets I had never seen an area that had been so shot up as the living room on one wall the south wall there were 45 bullet holes of various calibers the larger ones were 45 caliber fired from a Thompson submachine gun there were blasts from shotguns and there were 30 caliber and 38 having different sizes made it somewhat easy to establish which were fired from various weapons who had fired these shots the Panthers or the police McDonald hoped his investigation would provide the answer as streams of sightseers trooped through the apartment McDonald set to work unpacking the simple tools of his trade a camera notebook ruler and a ball of string soon he made a curious request I asked if I could have some straws brought in and some dowels the panthers went out some of them and they came back very quickly with a big handful of straws and a bundle of dowels smallest after measuring the precise position of every hole in the living room walls McDonald gently pushed the dowels and straws into them by following the direction of a dowel he could trace the path of a bullet the straws protected the holes ensuring that a dowel did not knock out plaster and destroy vital evidence when he finished the result was startling all 45 bullets had been fired from the vicinity of the living room door all must have come from the police as they burst into the room when I began looking at the number of bullet holes it became apparent that the vast majority seemed to be coming into the apartment rather than going out the investigation seemed to be favoring the Panthers version of the raid but the police were quick to state their case in an interview with the Chicago Tribune Hanrahan produced a photograph of bullet holes in the molding around the back door he called it irrefutable evidence that the Panthers had fired at the police as they entered from the rear of the apartment reporters studied the photos supposed to be the rear door but when reporters inspected the apartment they found the marks to be not holes but nails Hanrahan backpedaled I have said that we release the pictures we have not characterized or described the conditions that they portray other than to say that that is an accurate portrayal of that particular object now the police changed their story the Panther bullets they said whistled through the open door that is not what McDonald found the claims that there were bullets fired out at the police out the back door are unfounded there is no way the bullets could not have hit a person in the door and if they missed them they would have struck a brick wall McDonald continued his investigation in the front bedroom where he discovered bullets fired in the living room and passed through the wall while in the bedroom he noticed the door was also pierced by bullets he counted 25 of them the police had claimed Panthers in the bedroom shot at them and refused to stop firing despite orders from officers at first sight the door seemed to confirm this part of the police's story all the shots in the door came from the inside out exactly what would be expected if Panthers in the bedroom had been shooting at the police but there was a puzzle none of those 25 shots hit an officer nor was there any trace of them in the hallway beyond but on closer examination if those bullets were fired when the door was closed as was claimed by the police they would have struck the hall right across from that bedroom door there was not one point of impact there so having the dowels between the living room and that bedroom recessed I could open the door all the way and then all I had to do was to push the dowels from the living room side and out of the 25 holes in the door 25 were explained by the bullets coming from the living room when the door was wide open when these shots had been fired he concluded the bedroom door was open roughly parallel to the bedroom wall bullets fired by the police in the living room passed through the wall then continued on through the door by now the evidence was overwhelming of all the bullets fired only one a shotgun blast in the living room door seemed to have been fired by a black panther this was beginning to look like a very one-sided gunfight there were at least 99 fired in so when you have 99 to one it's not a shootout it's a shoot in but what happened in the back bedroom when Hampton lost his life was he waiting in bed ready to fire as police claimed or was he asleep and murdered in cold blood by the police as the Panthers insisted the trajectory of the bullets through his skull might solve the riddle On January 3rd 1970 a federal grand jury ordered Hamptons body exhumed two earlier autopsies had given conflicting results one conducted by the Cook County Coroner reported that the two bullets in his head came from opposite directions that suggested he was awake and moving Hamptons relatives arranged a second one by a private pathologist he found that both bullets had struck from the right and traveled on roughly parallel paths suggesting Hampton was lying down the new autopsy confirmed the second one regarding the trajectory both shots had entered Hamptons head from the right the findings supported the Black Panthers claim that Hampton had been asleep lying on his back with his head down from the trajectory into the head of Fred Hampton both shots were fired in nearly parallel trajectories which projected back to the doorway so if one policeman came in and fired a shot Fred would have still been lying in that position when the second person came in with a different caliber and fired a second shot at what probably was either a dead or dying person McDonald's meticulous investigation and the autopsy supported the Panther version of events it looked as if the police had indeed assassinated Fred Hampton but the most crucial question had not yet been answered did the Panthers or the police fire first if the Panthers had started the shooting even if they had fired just a single shot the police could maintain they shot back only in self-defense to answer this question McDonnell performed his most dazzling piece of detective work the gunfight evidently had started as the police stormed the living room MacDonald found that the living room door contained two bullet holes his examination of powder marks and wood splinters established that one bullet came from outside from a police 38 revolver he recovered the bullet from the living-room wall a second larger hole likely came from Mark Clark shotgun after blasting a hole in the door panel the slug had gone through a wall and ended up in the stairwell outside the apartment MacDonald had an idea by figuring out how far the door was open when the 38 bullet and the shotgun slug passed through it he might be able to tell who shot first he traced the bullets paths as they flew through the door he knew that by their own admission the police had forced open the door as the raid began he threaded a string through the 38 caliber hole in the door to the 38 hole in the wall then he adjusted the door until the string was straight the door was barely ajar next he ran a line from the slug hole in the stairwell through the hole in the door and then to mark Clark's chair this time when the string was pulled straight the door was 3/4 open through his experiments MacDonald pieced together the scenario as police pushed open the door at the start of the raid they fired the 38 as it swung open further a panther shotgun went off that was the only evidence of any shot being fired out McDonald's conclusion was clear the police fired first according to McDonald's findings the police broke in firing a 38 caliber pistol as they slammed open the living room door a panther presumably Mark Clark returned the fire as the fusillade of police bullets poured into the apartment panthers fled to the second bedroom where they tried in vain to awaken a Fred Hampton when the police reached the bedroom they shot Hampton twice in the head in court charges against the surviving seven Black Panthers were eventually dropped no indictments were ever handed down against State Attorney Hanrahan or the 14 officers involved in the raid but Hanrahan's credibility had been tarnished and his political career was ruined 12 years later in a civil suit brought by the panther survivors the Raiders were found liable and the city ordered to pay 1.8 million dollars in damages McDonald's detailed investigation helped to tip the scales and ensure that in the end justice was done it's been 30 years since Fred Hamptons death but today crime-solving takes as much tenacity and ingenuity as ever investigators are finding a new ally in the computer it's proving time and again that a criminals past can catch up with him on March 8 1996 a young boy was spending the evening as any twelve-year-old would when tragedy struck [Music] a gang war simmered on the streets of his New Orleans neighborhood the boy became a casualty of that war a bullet in his head from a senseless drive-by shooting within minutes police and paramedics were on the scene they rushed to save the boy's life but from the start the prognosis looked grim homicide detectives from the New Orleans Police Department began interviewing eyewitnesses two men who had run for safety when the drive-by occurred returned to the scene one of them was the victim's uncle the men admitted to police that they were the intended victims they recognized the car and identified the triggerman as Kevin Jordan a gang member and drug dealer meanwhile the child was taken to the hospital 15 hours later he died as the search for Kevin Jordan started sergeant michael rice and john Treadaway firearms examiner for the new orleans police began their own quest two bullets had been found at the crime scene and a third had been recovered from the little boy could they link those bullets to a gun and then linked that gun to the killer the bullet was placed in a evidence room and it was delivered to the firearm section for me to examine examining the bullet I found that it was a 38 caliber having a 6 right rifling twist most drive-by shootings involve semi-automatic handguns but this bullet was fired from a revolver so I was able to inform a detective bureau that the gun that was used was a 38 caliber revolver but were all three bullets fired from the same 38 to find out Treadaway had to compare the fine details of each one so if you see how pronounced this is if you looked up on the monitor here you can see about two-thirds the way down and notches on the following web and the file this is stop it no doubt at all this is both bullets fired from the same company I think this is what they needed now detectives in the field knew that only a single 38 revolver had been used until they found it there was little more that Treadaway could do detectives meanwhile learned the name of the driver he was Henry Talley they also found out he owned a 38 caliber revolver on March 16th they arrived at Tally's home armed with search warrants a search turned up drug paraphernalia marijuana crack cocaine and three guns including his 38 caliber revolver he was taken in for questioning Tally's weapons were confiscated and sent to tread away at the ballistics laboratory could he tie the 38 revolver to the bullet that killed the boy if so the police could build a solid case against Talley and the alleged triggerman Kevin Jordan who had already been arrested on suspicion of murder the first order of business was testing for fingerprints had tally or Jordan last fired the gun and left prints on the trigger Timothy Susanoo a fingerprint expert with New Orleans Police Department demonstrates how he finds them latent fingerprints prints invisible to the naked eye are developed in a two-stage process the first involves human gating with superglue molecules of the glue will stick to a print and you want to take you liquid something home and tore it into the bloomin dip next I'm gonna place the lumen dish onto a hot plate that's located inside this tank that's gonna heat the superglue and celebrate the fuming process within an hour the gun is cooked now it's ready for the second stage of the test it's washed with a fluorescent dye if any prints exist the dye will adhere to them and become visible under the ultraviolet light source unfortunately none showed up on the 38 found at Tally's residence the test could not help in the shooting on tally or Jordan still the test is often worth performing sometimes it can yield dramatic results this is an example of a partial latent fingerprint that was developed on the trigger guard of a weapon that was used in a murder as you can see the partial fingerprint right here that's on the front part the trigger guard which is located right here to establish a connection between Tally's gun and the fatal bullet Treadaway needed to inspect a bullet shot from the gun [Music] in this room is on ballistic tank that we testify our weapons in this is officer twin surpassed he's going to test-fire these rubbers we're gonna test-fire this 38 first before we do anything with this we know I might like to check to make sure that the weapon is functional make sure that there are no obstructions in a barrel and all the parts on the weapon are in place go ahead and load it you wouldn't need to put some ear protection on our it's a little loud in here the gun is fired into an 800 gallon tank of water informally called the hot tub water halts the bullet without distorting its shape or marking its surface [Music] once the weapons fired are then real unload the weapon remove the spent casings the bullet retrieval system is simple but effective a broom handle and a lump of silly putty once the bullet was recovered its markings were examined and compared with bullets found at the crime scene the match was undeniable so I performed my test fire and examined the bullet the test bullet under the microscope with the three bullets that I received previously and determined that that gun had fired those three bullets Tally's gun hadn't been shot little boy both Kelly and Jordan were convicted felons and by now the New Orleans police had enough evidence to charge Jordan with murder but they suspected that the guns found in Tally's house had been used in other crimes put a new computer system implicate tally in past crimes when the 12 year old boy died in a drive-by shooting in 1996 New Orleans police had a brand new crime solving tool available earlier that year they installed the integrated ballistic identification system or Ibis it dramatically speeds up the time it takes to match bullets from crime scenes to guns confiscated by police sergeant michael rice runs the Ibis operation for him it's a vast improvement from the old method we would go and physically get these guns and test farm and examine them on the microscope well right now with our office system we can now simply as a matter of routine test fire these weapons and put them into harvest this image will then be correlated and checked against all of our current database and if this gun had been used in a crime we will know about it in a very short period of time perhaps within the hour at the heart of ibis is a sophisticated computer program linked to an elaborate microscope attached to the microscope are two tiny video cameras when a test bullet is placed under one of the cameras it's magnified image appears on the screen Greg McCrae is one of the New Orleans detectives trained to use the new system we have the projectile the bullet itself mounted on a little fixture with the information recorded on it let's glue it on here we're going to mount it to the machine rotate it and lock it in at the flip of a switch the cradle begins to move turning the bullet through one complete revolution scanning an image of the bullet into the computer as you can see you see striations you see grooving you see markings as we move it down it'll take a picture of it the Machine digitizes this picture as it takes it now when we process it it is the pictures taken and processed digitally from this machine into the next machine the next computer which won't turn correlated built into Ibis is a program designed to scan each image for its distinctive pattern of marks or lines having picked it out the program searches through its database looking for other images of bullets that match within less than a minute it can scrutinize thousands of bullets a task that would take a ballistics expert like John Treadaway years to perform this part of Ibis is called bullet proof a second subsystem brass catcher enables him to scan and match spent shells the casing which is the other section of the bullet would be put in this area here and locked in here and secure this particular microscope we'll take a picture with the camera mounted up here of the back end or I should say the breech face of that casing the breech face and also the firing pin which is in right here now the computer records the shelves distinctive features the positions and shapes of indentations left by the firing pin and tiny gouges left as it's ejected from the weapon the operation is completed in two to three minutes ibis had been installed less than a month when a bullet from the 38 revolver that killed the 12 year old boy was entered into it there were no hits no matches with the thousands of other bullets in the computer's database but the system's real power was demonstrated with bullets test-fired from a second gun a 45 caliber automatic found in Henry Tally's apartment the firing pin which we're looking at if you look very closely you can see this duck image right here Center in the firing pin itself but this is very clear we knew from looking at the screen that the probability of a match was very very high Ibis made a hit implicating Henry tally in another unsolved drive-by shooting it was enough to strengthen the case against him regarding the death of the child Ibis had proved itself on its first case prior to Ibis this case would have probably been unsolved they would have never been never picked up any additional follow-up unless it was a specific reason for it we have uncovered and linked many many cases involving no homicides as well as shootings here in the city and we made those links and those correlations and tied them all together by simply what Greg's doing right now and we kind of proud of what we do here and I would I would not want to be without Arvest today the death of the 12 year old boy was solved partly by traditional ballistics but without the ibis computer system police would never have connected Tally's weapons to another crime that might have otherwise gone unsolved both Kevin Jordan and Henry Talley were convicted of first degree murder and are now serving life sentences [Music] by developing new ways to trace bullets to guns and guns to criminals forensic detectives are increasingly able to turn a criminals own ammunition against him so long as there's a bullet there's a clue and so long as there's a clue there's a chance to catch a killer [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]