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- [00:01]
A
Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results are so dramatic. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. So what if you're looking to lose weight but not interested in painful weekly injections, especially when you hear about some of those intense side effects. That's why doctors created a weight loss supplement called Lean. And the results are remarkable. The studied ingredients in Lean have been shown to lower your blood sugar, burn, burn fat by converting it into energy, and curb your appetite and cravings so you're not as hungry. But listen, lean is not for the casual dieter with only a few pounds to lose. The doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition created Lean for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. Multiple producers and employees of the Daily Wire have tried Lean and they have been so impressed at how effective it's been in achieving their weight loss goals. Lean. Let's get you started with 20% off and free rush shipping so you can add Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit takelean.com and enter DW Crime for your discount. That promo code is dwcrime@takelean.com In a recent court filing by the defense team of Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, there's one section that's making headlines. Tyler Robinson, he's the man accused of shooting and killing Charlie Kirk back in September with a single shot to the neck while Charlie was speaking to college students at Utah Valley University. An intense manhunt ensued after that, and Tyler Robinson turned himself in the following day. As Tyler awaits his trial, his defense team is looking to push back the preliminary hearing. His defense team stated in a court filing, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was unable to identify the bullet recovered at Charlie's autopsy to the rifle that Tyler Robinson allegedly used. So what does this mean? The defense find a hole. I'm Lyndon Blake, and this is. That's so criminal. So I don't like to go to the headlines. I like to go straight to the experts. So today we bring in Joshua Wright. He is an expert witness of forensic ballistics, and he is here to explain what it means when a bullet doesn't come back a match. All right, I'm going to welcome in Josh Wright. He is a expert witness in forensic ballistics. So in the filing, it said that regarding the firearm evidence, the defense has been provided with an ATF summary report which indicates that the ATF was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson. Is this something that's common?
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B
Yes, it is.
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A
Why is it common.
- [02:46]
B
So when you have bullets that are flying at a high rate of speed, hitting something, a lot of times they'll fragment or they will become damaged by hitting bone or some other way. And this can affect the rifling marks that are used to make an identification. So it's important to note that in that statement they're not saying the bullet is eliminated from having come from that firearm. If that were a case, that would be much more, you know, earth shattering news in my opinion, because that means that was not the gun that fired the bullet. In this case they're saying they just can't make an identification. What I take that to mean is that there's just not enough individual characteristics, not enough information on the rifling marks on that bullet to make an identification back to that specific firearm.
- [03:38]
A
So in my mind, when I'm reading this, as a person that just consumes news and like looks at court cases and deals a lot of like testing and all that kind of stuff in my head I'm thinking, is there no way to, to test the part of the bullet recovered, like the material of it to match the same type of bullet that would be a part of that rifle? Is that not how this works?
- [04:05]
B
So how it works is that they get that rifle from Tyler Robinson, they shoot their own test fires using either the exact same ammunition that was in the rifle, or more often they would just find suitable ammunition that's the same caliber, same manufacturer, same bullet type, same bullet weight. They'll try to, you know, account for all those variables as much as they can without using the actual evidence and destroying evidence. And then they'll shoot their test fires. Then they'll look at their test fires under a comparison microscope which allows them to see those test fires, you know, side by side and get an idea with what kind of repeating individual marks are being left on these bullets from that rifle, from that rifle. Once they get a good idea of a repeating pattern that's being left, if one is being left, then they can take one of those test fired bullets and compare it to the bullet that was found in Charlie Kirk. And so that may be a fragment. I don't know if they got an intact bullet or if they've got fragments, but, but anyways they would, they would then compare their test fired bullet to that fragment or to that other bullet that was, that was pulled from Charlie Kirk. And depending on how small or fragmented is, there may just not be enough information on that to make a good comparison. There might be half a bullet. And so you're only able to see one or two land impressions, which is really the impressions that you want to look at to find your unique markings. You know, so firearms are rifled. They have lands and grooves, and the land impressions are the ones with the most unique markings. So you want to look at the land impressions on the bullets. And if you only have one or two land impressions, then you're not. You don't have a whole lot of information. You're just hoping that there's enough unique individual characteristics within that one or two land impressions to give you a good id. One thing I would clarify is that just for listeners is that when it comes to firearms identification, you have three potential conclusions. You have an identification, which means that bullet, the suspected bullet, or the. Or the evidence bullet did come from the suspected firearm. You have an inconclusive, which means you cannot tell whether the bullet did or did not come from the firearm. So all the class characteristics, which are these, these are characteristics that are predetermined prior to the manufacturing process. So the caliber, the number of lands and grooves, the direction of twist of those lands and groove, those are all the same. However, you just don't have those microscopic individual marks to make an identification. And then you have finally an elimination as the final conclusion, and that is that you have enough information between the question bullet to the firearm to say this bullet absolutely did not come from this firearm. And then lastly, I guess, kind of a. I guess there could be potentially 4, is that you have a bullet that just has no information. So it's a fragment, a tiny fragment of lead. You can't determine that. That there's any rifling on it. And so it has a. What's called a no value when these
- [07:29]
A
bullets are being analyzed. Because a lot of people, when this headline came out, and, you know, the headline language that the Daily Mail used was different than the language in the court filing. You know, like it's inconclusive. It's. They did not, you know, find a match or unable to identify as different than doesn't match or not from the gun, which is what the headline said. I guess people are questioning the distance and the bullet and from where Tyler Robinson allegedly was placed on the roof about 150 yards from Kirk. With that type of rifle and ammunition, is it common for that bullet to be fragmented to the point where at the autopsy they're not able to make that identification?
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B
Yeah, you know, it's probably. 3006 is the caliber that was used, and it travels nearly 3,000ft per second, which is extremely fast. And when you have a bullet that's traveling that fast, often it will come apart and it will fragment when it hits something. Now, that's much more common in say, you know, five, five, six or two, two, three, which is kind of like the, you know, AR15 caliber bullets. Those fragment much more readily because they're smaller and they're also going very fast. But 36 can fragment. Whether it would have or not, it's really hard to say. Bullets will do unpredictable things. And so it's, it's really hard to say. I would say probably, I would expect, you know, also there to have been much more damage done, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't have been a 30 out six that shot him. I mean, it's, as I mentioned, you know, bullets are very unpredictable. And so, you know, that's, that's part of the hard parts of doing forensic ballistics is guessing what would happen. And a lot of times you see, you do see some things that you wouldn't think or expect to see.
- [09:44]
A
In the case of this defense filing, I just want to keep coming back to that statement. This may not be a question for you, but when a defense claims that they can't identify a bullet to the alleged murder weapon, what does that do for the investigation? How strong of a claim is that?
- [10:07]
B
Well, they're making that claim and it's, and it's having the effect that they want it to have. Right. So to the layman, what that means to the layman is, oh, this bullet didn't come from this gun, but that's not what it means an elimination. If the ATF would have come back and said this bullet has been eliminated as having come from this firearm, then that would mean what everybody thinks it means. However, when you say that, well, there's not a match, they want everybody to think that the bullet didn't come from that gun. Really, all that means is that they can neither determine or they can neither identify nor eliminate whether the bullet came from that gun. And so there's just not enough information to make a determination one way or the other. And so while they might be able to see the calibers the same, they might be able to see, you know, a lot of similarities. There's just not enough individual characteristics to make an identification. But that's important to realize that's not an and elimination.
- [11:09]
A
So I guess it just depends on. And again, we're early, haven't even had the preliminary hearing, but when I first read it, my thought was this is what the defense team is Supposed to, like, is supposed to file and say they were unable to identify. If that wasn't true, like, could they still use that language to try to poke holes in this? Or is that not how it works? Like, are they dealing with someone at the autopsy? Like, dealing with someone that has to make the comparison? And they truly couldn't. They truly were not able, with what the material they were given to make the connection.
- [11:49]
B
So usually the defense, you know, in this case, they're happy with what the other side has found. Right. They're happy with the findings of we can't say one way or the other whether the bullet did or did not come from this gun, because that's essentially what the answer is. Now, they're not going to report it out like that. They're just going to say, we weren't. We were unable to make an identification or we were unable to make a match. You know, a match usually isn't terminology you would hear used in a report. But they're unable to make an identification. And so that's great news for the defense because now, you know, you can't make a determination one way or the other. Therefore, the ballistics, that aspect of the ballistics now doesn't hold very much weight. Right. If they would have came in and said, we made an identification, then obviously that would be a huge deal. And what the defense would likely do is hire somebody like me to get a second independent look and make sure that the state is seeing a good identification or whether they're reaching, you know, and kind of saying, yeah, there's not a lot there, but we think there's enough to make an id. So that's what would have happened if they made an identification, is that the defense would have. Would have gotten their own expert. In this case, the defense gets the answer they want, which is they can't make a determination. So they're going to pump that up and say, you know, look at this. This weighs a lot. This is. This means something. But in actuality, it doesn't really mean a whole lot.
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A
But it did have to come from the official report for this one, which was from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It was their investigation that came back inconclusive.
- [13:30]
B
Yes, that's what. That's my understanding.
- [13:33]
A
Okay. And then now in like your real world job, since you've left the government level and you do do this independently, this is where you would personally step in. Like you said, if this came back and they were like, oh, look, looks. Looks to me like it's a match and the defense could potentially then be like, I know I'm speaking very, you know, theoretically here. Call up you, Josh Wright, and say, I need you to look at this bullet from the autopsy and see if you can get that same conclusion.
- [14:06]
B
Right. And so I would either shoot my own test fires or I would even possibly use the test fires that the ATF fired. And then I would put it on my scope and, you know, using my expertise and having, you know, 20 plus years of expertise on the microscope, I would see, you know, do I agree with them? Do I think they're reaching? I've had cases where the states called it an identification. And I've come back and said there's, there's no way there's enough information between these two bullets to be able to say that there's an identification here. You have to call this a inconclusive or, you know, basically what they're saying in this case. And then you can't make the id. And the difference of that is that, you know, in one case, if you have an identification, you're saying this specific gun fired this bullet. But if, if you're reaching and it really should be an inconclusive, that's important because there's, there's many other firearms out there that shoot. 30 OD6 caliber bullets. And so you can't eliminate those if it's an inconclusive.
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A
Okay. And then, so if you have something that's you eliminated this bullet did not come from this firearm, could that mean this bullet could have come from a different rifle?
- [15:29]
B
That's exactly what it would mean. It would mean that the bullet came from a completely different rifle, not the rifle that Tyler Robinson was using.
- [15:39]
A
So then would you have to know what type of ammunition Tyler was using? You'd have to figure that out to be able to make a match since there's so many variations.
- [15:49]
B
Well, no, if you, if they came back with a, with an answer or conclusion that it was an elimination, so that, what that would mean is that they either found, you know, something wrong with the class characteristics, right? So like the caliber is different or the number of lands and grooves are different, or the direction of twist of those lands and grooves are different, or the width of those lands and grooves are different from the rifling within the gun that Tyler used. And so in that case, if that were to have happened, then, you know, that would be major evidence that would point to Tyler was found with this Mauser. 30 06, and this is not the gun that shot Charlie Kirk, therefore he didn't Shoot Charlie Kirk is essentially the conclusions we would reach from that conclusion.
- [16:37]
A
And I'm slicing and dicing this every single way I can. So these questions may come off not very smart. But back to that point. So you're saying, okay, if I have a rifle and I'm shooting a 3006 and I'm shooting a hog and you have a same rifle or a different rifle shooting the same type of ammunition that I'm shooting, we bought it together and we have two different rifles and we're both shooting the same ammunition, my gun would leave a different impression than your gun.
- [17:18]
B
Yes. And so you would have individual characteristics that could set those two apart. Or what's more likely for, for eliminations and casework is that my gun, we might have the same caliber rifles, but your rifle is a six lands and grooves with a right hand twist and my rifle is six lands and grooves with a left hand twist. Or those lands and grooves are different widths. So when I compare those bullets, I can see, oh, these came from two different firearms. They're the same caliber, they're the same bullet. Everything else about them is same, but the class characteristics are different. And then there are situations where you can eliminate off of individual characteristics, which means that the rifling is the same, the ammunition is the same, all the class characteristics are similar. However, I can determine that they're two different guns because I have ample the markings, the individual markings within those lands and grooves are so nice and so easy to see that I can say, okay, I've shot five test fires with this, this Mauser rifle and man, it leaves really good marks. I can identify all my test fires to each other. However, when I look at this other evidence bullet that has the same caliber, same rifling, same direction of twist, it's just very different. The little microscopic individual characteristics are so different from this one compared to my test that I'm going to go ahead and call this an elimination and say this gun did not fire this bullet.
- [18:57]
A
That is fascinating. That is fascinating. Well, thank you. Josh Wright, the expert witness of forensics ballistics. We analyzed this. I think about every way you could, but you taught me a lot and I'm really appreciative of you coming on.
- [19:15]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
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A
This is a case that we're going to continue to follow. The nation is continuing to follow this case. The next big date in the courtroom, April 7th, 17th, that's when the next hearing is scheduled. Is the defense motion to ban cameras from the courtroom. The defense wants cameras out, of course, Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow, has said she wants cameras in this courtroom. So I spoke with a criminal defense attorney to see if he thinks the judge will grant the defense team their wish. He says he thinks there's too much public interest in this case, that the judge will strike that down. So. So we'll continue to follow this and keep you guys up to date. I'm Lyndon Blake, and this is. That's so criminal.
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B
I'm Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the alliance for Secure AI. We're a coalition of patriotic Americans who want to stop AI from taking our freedoms. Big Tech is propping up AI Powered mass surveillance and exploiting our children online. This is not the future we want. The alliance is working hard to ensure that we put Americans first. Join us@secureainow.org to learn more. Paid for by the alliance for Secure AI.