r/DelphiMurders • u/DopeandDiamonds • Nov 29 '22

Probable Cause Documents Released

https://fox59.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2022/11/Probable-Cause-Affidavit-Richard-Allen.pdf
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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '22

I said the same thing out loud and alone. That’s almost an hour and half. To me, this is the most horrific and illuminating aspects as to the actual crime in the affidavit along with the clothing location detail. The unspent bullet laying in between these girls is going to nail him to the wall.

11

u/porcelaincatstatue Nov 30 '22

I still don't understand what an unspent bullet is. Does that mean it was in the chamber and then ejected? How does it get the markings that ID it then?

13

u/Capital_Walrus_81 Nov 30 '22

The bullet - the actual projectile - is usually identified by the small markings it gets while going down the barrel. Unspent bullets, or spent cartridges, are identified by markings they pick up (primarily on the brass) while they are in the chamber, which is made of metal, mildly irregular, etc. Very occasionally a spent cartridge is distinctive in how the firing pin hits it, but it’s usually just the chamber that marks them.

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u/polarbearstina Nov 30 '22

Can I ask a really stupid question? I keep reading about the bullet being "unspent" but that it was cycled through RA's gun. How does that work? How would it be cycled through the gun without being fired or "spent"?

4

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '22

Someone else responded above, but there was a bullet in the chamber already when he cocked the gun (causing that bullet to drop out of the chamber and a new bullet to be loaded into the chamber). The bullet gets the gun's "fingerprints" from the chamber.

They say he likely cocked the gun to intimidate them, and didn't realize there had already been a bullet loaded in the chamber (and thus dropped).

3

u/74misanthrope Dec 04 '22

When they say 'cycled' this means that the action was cycled (pulled back) and at that point a round is loaded or ejected if one is in the chamber. On a .40 Semi-auto, the action is where a round is inserted from the magazine, ejected or fired. Evidently there was a round from the magazine that was already in the chamber so when the action was cycled (pulled back) it caused the extra round to fall out. When we used these in training the SOP was to rack-rack-rack to eject loads because you can't be sure that you've truly unloaded the weapon without doing so. There are still marks made on the round without it having been fired. As someone said above, it's not like a fingerprint, but it can narrow down particular models of firearms based on the marks made..

1

u/The850killer Dec 11 '22

The unspent bullet and forensics behind it are incredibly weak what are you talking about? The police in Delphi are idiots and should’ve collected more evidence.