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Two young men in North Carolina spent several days drinking heavily. In the end, one of them shot the other 45 times with a 5-round .38 Special revolver.

During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the victim had died some time around the 32nd round. The victim was shot from head to below his belt buckle.

The 24-year-old killer claimed self-defense, mental illness, and intoxication defenses. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

http://www.journalpatriot.com/fullstory.asp?id=875" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

Man......that's crazy.........

But it brings a thought to mind........
Maybe I should reconsider my .38 Snubby BUG

AEA wrote:Maybe I should reconsider my .38 Snubby BUG

I was just pondering the oddity of this when compared to the two men killed by the 8 year old with a single-shot .22.

Shot placement counts. I'm curious as to where the first 31 hits were.

Before you write off the .38 Special (which nearly every law enforcement officer in the country carried for half a century), please keep in mind that the victim apparently did not resist after the first couple of rounds.

The human body has only a few areas where an injury causes sudden death: the heart, major arteries like the aorta and femoral, and the brain stem. Injuries to many other organs, like the lungs, will result in death in half a minute to three minutes.

A man shot a woman in my neighborhood in June, four shots from a .22 rifle. She died in the hospital two weeks later.

- Jim

Very interesting how they could determine the order of shots and how many landed before the person died.

My limited understanding of forensics is that the victim bleeds from injuries that occur while the heart is still beating, and not from those that occur afterward.

Of course, in this case, the defendant did not have an expert witness to contest the findings of the medical examiner.

(That's irrelevant anyway. There's no justification for reloading and shooting someone who is down.)

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:The human body has only a few areas where an injury causes sudden death: the heart, major arteries like the aorta and femoral, and the brain stem. Injuries to many other organs, like the lungs, will result in death in half a minute to three minutes.

How long does it take a (probably inexperienced) drunk to reload a revolver at least five times? I seriously doubt he had that many speedloaders laying around.

Five minutes for 30 rounds seems like a reasonable guess.

If the first shot went through the eye or the frontal lobe, the victim likely would not have been able to resist or flee. (An eye injury doesn't kill you, but it sure monopolizes your attention.)

A sober person can reload a revolver without a speedloader in 30 seconds without hurrying.

(A really good shooter can reload with a speedloader so fast you just see a blur, but I also doubt that this guy could do that.)

- Jim

The human body is an unbelievably tough thing. Absent a wound in a major area, it will keep working. This is not theory; I've personally witnessed horrific gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs, arms and thorax in other people that, basically, just made them angry. I've also experienced it myself. True, serious medical attention was required for the wounds at some point but death from them required something else to have been wounded.

Very interesting how they could determine the order of shots and how many landed before the person died.

They didn't specify the order in which the shots were fired. Just the number that happened before he died and how many occurred after he died.

The human body has only a few areas where an injury causes sudden death: the heart...

Not true - there are many, many documented cases where individuals have been shot in the heart and not died until they bled out. In fact, a female LAPD officer was shot point blank in the heart with a .357 magnum during a home invasion and struggled with her attackers until she fought them off. She survived to tell about it.

In the Dallas area a LEO struggled with a suspect and during the fight the officer shot the suspect in the heart. Before the suspect bled out from his injuries he continued to fight with the officer, take his weapon away and kill him. We were (and still are) taught that the only instantly incapacitating shot is to the cerebellum, a part of the brain that controls voluntary movement that lies at the base of the skull. During sniper training we would fire at targets that had a dot placed directly below the nose and right above the top lip to indicate where we needed to aim to hit that area.

CHL/LEO wrote:

The human body has only a few areas where an injury causes sudden death: the heart...

Not true - there are many, many documented cases where individuals have been shot in the heart and not died until they bled out. In fact, a female LAPD officer was shot point blank in the heart with a .357 magnum during a home invasion and struggled with her attackers until she fought them off. She survived to tell about it.

In the Dallas area a LEO struggled with a suspect and during the fight the officer shot the suspect in the heart. Before the suspect bled out from his injuries he continued to fight with the officer, take his weapon away and kill him. We were (and still are) taught that the only instantly incapacitating shot is to the cerebellum, a part of the brain that controls voluntary movement that lies at the base of the skull. During sniper training we would fire at targets that had a dot placed directly below the nose and right above the top lip to indicate where we needed to aim to hit that area.

I guess I have a question on this...Does a .45 JHP round have enough energy to go through this area and destroy the cerebellum, say at 5 to 10 feet distance? I apologize if this is a dumb question (maybe too much of Law and Order on TV).

pbwalker wrote:

CHL/LEO wrote:
I guess I have a question on this...Does a .45 JHP round have enough energy to go through this area and destroy the cerebellum, say at 5 to 10 feet distance? I apologize if this is a dumb question (maybe too much of Law and Order on TV).

The cerebellum is fairly small; a little less than the size of a walnut and is protected by a slanting portion of the skull. It is the primitive portion of the brain that controls our autonomic functions: heartbeat, breathing, etc.. A .45 ACP JHP round would certainly do the trick ... if you made the shot from the rear and the projectile was not deflected from its path by the slanting bone matter. A .357 Mag has the energy for frontal shots, but bone deflection could still be a problem. Maybe.

I've observed threads such as this before (concerning head shots). Pistoleros need to concentrate on shooting to stop the fight; not shooting to kill. One of the wise, old BPA's who trained me taught to rely on shots to the pelvic girdle. That area of the body is large and wide; it doesn't bob and weave as heads tend to do. A broken pelvis will place an assailant on the ground - fast. It will, also, enable the civilian to retreat and call The Law or The Law to move in and effect the apprehension.

I've read similar stories of would be robbers getting shot a dozen times with non-JHP ball rounds and running off for a block or two. I wonder if that was the type of ammunition used. The article doesn't get that specific.

CHL/LEO wrote:

The human body has only a few areas where an injury causes sudden death: the heart...

Not true - there are many, many documented cases where individuals have been shot in the heart and not died until they bled out. In fact, a female LAPD officer was shot point blank in the heart with a .357 magnum during a home invasion and struggled with her attackers until she fought them off. She survived to tell about it.

In the Dallas area a LEO struggled with a suspect and during the fight the officer shot the suspect in the heart. Before the suspect bled out from his injuries he continued to fight with the officer, take his weapon away and kill him. We were (and still are) taught that the only instantly incapacitating shot is to the cerebellum, a part of the brain that controls voluntary movement that lies at the base of the skull. During sniper training we would fire at targets that had a dot placed directly below the nose and right above the top lip to indicate where we needed to aim to hit that area.

I noticed you didn't say that lady got shot THROUGH the heart. Where was the actual wound? A bullet passing through the heart is normally fatal I would think.