Here's an interesting question?

[cee-dee]

Stick with the story........ Let us suppose that 70 years ago a man was accidentally shot dead while out shooting Grey squirrels in a large wood with a group of other people.

An inquest decided it was an accident and that one of the group was the unfortunate shooter. There was no charges as it was deemed an accident.

Now, long after the death of the victims wife, some old diaries, notes and papers were read through by an interested party who was shocked to discover that the victims wife had detailed in her notes a few days before her death that she'd got away with killing her husband in revenge after discovering his infidelity.

The family were "of means" and lived on a large estate where "Hunt'n, shoot'n and fish'n" was the norm and they had a large selection of guns. The way the wife had "got away with it" was that she'd taken one of the .22 rifles and fired a bullet in to a water barrel, then taken that bullet and fitted it in to another .22 cartridge case after carefully pulling out its bullet. She'd then loaded one of their old "garden guns" with the doctored round and hid it in the woods.

When the party went squirrel shooting (at the wife' suggestion), she'd taken her own personal rifle and the party guests had taken the other .22 rifles. The garden gun was smooth bore, ie, not rifled. When she used the garden gun to shoot her husband, the fatal bullet was found to be rifled but didn't match the wife's rifle.

Now, 70 years ago, forensics were not as advanced as they are today so the fact that the rifling on the fatal bullet may have been a bit..... er.... scored(???) after being fired again in a smooth bore gun wouldn't have been noticed.

The question is....:-

After all that time, would the revellation result in re-opening the inquest or would the powers-that-be decide that there was no useful purpose in wasting time and effort in doing that as the murderer was long dead as was the person who'd wrongly been identified as the accidental shooter?

[soppysofty]

Logic and common sense would say that the original coroners verdict would be let to stand.

But I have a feeling there is a twist here?

[cee-dee]

No twist. I just wondered if anyone had any practical comment or opinion.

[upthecreekyetagain]

There is the question of inheritanceto take into account as the husband and wife were people 'of means'.

A challenge regarding the estate of both the husband and later the wife could be raised without a change in the inquest verdict.  The act of murder and the subsequent inheritance of the husbands estate would constitute fraud for which there is no time limit for an interested party to make a claim.

[upthecreekyetagain]

The inheritance law was changed in 2006 to allow descendants of murderers to inherit from the victim - in this case the couple's children prior to 2006 would have been disqualified from any inheritance, as would their children.  The change in the law was not retrospective so potentially any children/grand children etc of the couple could forfeit any interest in the estate.

[cee-dee]

Thanks for that. The thing is, all the kin were gone.

Her mother only had her as an only child and her father had no living, close relatives.

She had a son and he had two sons, the oldest of which inherited the estate from his father but he's now sold it all off (over 20,000 acres with houses and farms). It's a bit more complicated?

[upthecreekyetagain]

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@cee-dee wrote:

Thanks for that. The thing is, all the kin were gone.

Her mother only had her as an only child and her father had no living, close relatives.

She had a son and he had two sons, the oldest of which inherited the estate from his father but he's now sold it all off (over 20,000 acres with houses and farms). It's a bit more complicated?

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So the grandson who sold off the estate could potentially be facing a claim by the 'rightful' inheritor following the rules of probate - if no relatives, (close or not), could be found then the claimant would be the Crown.

[cee-dee]

Before any of that, they'd have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that what the lady wrote was actually true?

The original rifle would be long gone but would the bullet have been kept after the original "accident" verdict?

[upthecreekyetagain]

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@cee-dee wrote:

Before any of that, they'd have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that what the lady wrote was actually true?

The original rifle would be long gone but would the bullet have been kept after the original "accident" verdict?

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All they'd have to do is prove on the 'balance of probabilities' that what she wrote was true - any claim would be heard in a civil court.

Whether or not any such claim were made would I guess depend on the value of the estate - high enough value and some lawyer would take it on.

[cee-dee]

Well, prove on the balance of probabilities or not, it would be very hard wouldn't it? Impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt?

Well, would the estate be valued at the figure "in the day" = at the time of the "murder" or present day? When it was sold, it was many millions of course. In the day, some hundreds of thousands.

BTW, re Deno, Aciclovir is used in the treatment of cold sores?

[upthecreekyetagain]

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@cee-dee wrote:

Well, prove on the balance of probabilities or not, it would be very hard wouldn't it? Impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt?

Well, would the estate be valued at the figure "in the day" = at the time of the "murder" or present day? When it was sold, it was many millions of course. In the day, some hundreds of thousands.

BTW, re Deno, Aciclovir is used in the treatment of cold sores?

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I guess it would be based on the value when sold:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1532386/Dickens-of-a-case.html

HPV infections, (human papillomavirus), is treated with acyclovir - sarcoids are caused by a closely related virus, bovine papillomavirus.  We decided to give it a go after reading the following:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21493530

It has worked brilliantly when previous attempts using Liverpool Cream, surgery and banding had all had little effect.  The only problem has been getting hold of it in large quantities - chemists won't sell it for animal use without a vet's prescription which are expensive and buying it for 'human' use you are limited in the quantity they will sell and it only comes in small tubes - 2grm for a fiver!!

[joamur_gosof]

I am thinking....Bergerac.

and I supposes they would have to do something (even if just putting the record straight )and overturn the ruling to give an open verdict.

[soppysofty]

The whole scenario hinges on the Coroners verdict.

For there to be any changes a new Coroners Court would need to be conveened and all the evidence re-examined.

As the primary (witnesses) are not available then examination of testimony would not be possible.

It is, therefore, very doubtful as to whether a new Coroners Inquest would be called and, if it was, then the only verdict it could reach, based on the information supplied, would be an Open Verdict.

Only if a verdict of 'Unlawful Killing' was returned could any further action be taken.

As such a verdict would be impossible to assertain to the standards required in law then the original verdict or an open verdict would be given.

My final opinion is that no court would be coveened and the status quo would be allowed to stand.

[cee-dee]

As to the inheritance angle for a claim from the Crown, it seems that's out of the window.

The family:- Lady A was married to B (and it was his family "with the money") and they had one child,Lady C (No, noooooo...... not Lady Chatterly)

Now Lady C was married to D and it was she who shot D,They had one child, a boy E.

When B died, he willed the estate and everything directly to E.

It was E who had two sons, F and G.

When E died, the estate was mostly willed to F (the oldest) and it was he who sold it all off.

It was the re-opening of the inquest etc I was keen on an opinion and whether anyone would waste a lot of time and money on what was, in effect, a useless excercise?

UTCYA, I see, I've seen those tiny 2 gram tubes on sale and they do seem expensive for what they are however, things from the vet often seem to be three times the price of what you can buy elsewhere (if no prescription is needed).

[joamur_gosof]

Its only a useless exercise if judge L doesnt overturn judge H's first findings in the I 

[malacandran]

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@cee-dee wrote:

Stick with the story........ Let us suppose that 70 years ago a man was accidentally shot dead while out shooting Grey squirrels in a large wood with a group of other people.

 The way the wife had "got away with it" was that she'd taken one of the .22 rifles and fired a bullet in to a water barrel, then taken that bullet and fitted it in to another .22 cartridge case after carefully pulling out its bullet. She'd then loaded one of their old "garden guns" with the doctored round and hid it in the woods.

When the party went squirrel shooting (at the wife' suggestion), she'd taken her own personal rifle and the party guests had taken the other .22 rifles. The garden gun was smooth bore, ie, not rifled. When she used the garden gun to shoot her husband, the fatal bullet was found to be rifled but didn't match the wife's rifle.

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This question seems to hinge on a crucial point:

Can a bullet be fired twice?  With no detectable physical effects on the bullet.  Surely that's unlikely.

Even if the bullet was first fired into a water-barrel. The water would rapidly slow the bullet, and produce distortions in its original shape.

The distortions would have nothing to do with "rifling", they'd be much grosser effects -  bending, twisting, or squashing of the bullet.

Given the obviousness of such effects, wouldn't even Inspector Lestrade, have seen through the wife's story, and clapped the cuffs on her?

[cee-dee]

Ballistic tests on bullets are conducted by firing them in to a water tank to compare the undamaged rifling to one found after a criminal act to check whether the marks can be linked to a particular gun.

Firing a .22 bullet through a rifled barrel would leave a grooved impression on the bullet. The diameter of the grooves would be .22 (inches).

A smooth bore .22 gun has a smooth bore of .22 so although there may be some slight distortion of the diameter of the re-used bullet, the impression left by the lands of the rifling of the first gun would be undamaged.

I don't think Inspector Lestrade was a ballistic expert.

[malacandran]

Thanks cee-dee for the information.

However the idea of firing the same bullet twice doesn't seem credible in real life.  More like the solution to a detective story, like in "Columbo", or "Lord Peter Whimsey".  

Ingenious,  but remote from reality.

Your post was good though, and stirred up the little grey-cells!

As for Inspector Lestrade, I think he got a raw deal from Watson, and Holmes actually quite fancied the guy.

[cee-dee]

So why do you say a .22 bullet fired from a rifled barrel can not be fired again by being inserted in to another cartridge case to be used in a (probably worn) smooth bore garden gun?

Incidentally, a rifled .22 rimfire would have a groove diameter of around .222 and the bore diameter would be around .217.

[malacandran]

Because the fired .22 bullet wouldn't fit into the cartridge case. The bullet would be too distorted, by being fired.

Heck, otherwise, we'd all be shooting each other undetectably!