Chris wrote:G.C.Montgomery wrote: O'Donnell then shot himself twice with the handgun that investigators believe was used in the rape.
depends on how you tell the story, and what details you know. i know of a few multi-shot suicides. usually those are to the chest. one i recall was done with a newly purchased colt .45. she fired twice to the chest.
i worked one where a guy put the barrel to the roof of his mouth and fired. it was a full-house .357 magnum round. it didn't clear the skull. in fact, it looked like one side of his face shifted up some. very odd thing to see, and an image i'll likely not forget anytime soon, even though this happened 10 years ago. there was a clean hole in the roof of the mouth, and a lot of the teeth were destroyed; likely from recoil and muzzle blast. bleeding was just massive. guy is still alive today.
one guy was intending on killing his girlfriend, then himself. after seeing that it took 3 head shots to completely finish her off, he felt it wasn't as clean as he'd liked, and changed his mind to do the same to himself.
i've seen crime scene photos of point blank head shots from a shotgun that just peel the skin off. if you want to get the job done, a 7mm magnum is the way to go. very little left after that.
while this may sound morbid, it goes along with what's being discussed. bullets are little tiny objects. 115 to 230 grains is not a lot of mass. pistol bullets travel far slower than rifle bullets. a tiny little object can easily be deflected. consider the difference in velocity from a rifle and pistol though. i could definitely see how a bullet could lodge in a skull and not penetrate.
we fired through car windshields once. shooting from outside in, the bullets deflect up. this is laminated glass where a bullet should conceivably zip right through, but there is just enough pressure behind the glass to deflect the bullet up a few inches from the windshield to the headrest. shooting from outside in, it's the exact opposite; bullet deflects down. in doing this, a variety of windshields were used, and several pistol calibers, shotguns, and .223 rifles were used. all had the same results. that tiny rake in the windshield deflects the bullets.
what's my point? i will continue to carry my 9mm because i know i can hit exactly what i'm aiming at. i don't care if it goes through, or if it lodges in your head, so long as whatever is being done against me stops immediately. 9mm is my favorite pistol caliber, and will continue to be.