Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #185

[AugustWest]

Another side of the Ames II coin:

<snipped>

And the recent studies were intentionally challenging. In the 2022 Ames II study, 173 trained firearm examiners compared a total of 8,640 fired cartridge cases and bullets. The firearms and ammunition were carefully chosen for their “propensity to produce challenging and ambiguous test specimens.” Study ammunition, for example, had “steel cartridge cases and steel-jacketed bullets (steel, being harder than brass, is less likely to be marked).” With fewer microscopic markings, the comparison’s difficulty increases. Even faced with these stacked odds, the overall false positive error rate was less than 1 percent.

Firearm Forensics Has Proven Reliable in the Courtroom. And in the Lab

What other side of the coin? I simply linked the study with no commentary. People can make their own mind up after reading it should they desire.

 

[girlhasnoname]

I don't think it was ever disclosed where Libby's phone was found. Was it?

I suspect she dropped it in the leaves where the girls were found or previously going up the muddy bank.

Regardless, I think BG couldn't locate it or he would have taken it with him and destroyed it.

The Franks Memo says under found near Abby, the PCA says it was found under Libby. If the "Odin sacrificial ritualists" who supposedly redressed Abby fully step by step by gruesome step as pointed out in the CS details of the FM, I'm sure it would have been located and destroyed.

I agree BG would have destroyed it had he known of it, even if he didn't want to have it on his person tracking his movements. I think RA was in a heightened frenzy during and after the murders. One thing to fantasize about, another completely to actually carry out.

MOO

 

[Justice101]

Another side of the Ames II coin:

<snipped>

And the recent studies were intentionally challenging. In the 2022 Ames II study, 173 trained firearm examiners compared a total of 8,640 fired cartridge cases and bullets. The firearms and ammunition were carefully chosen for their “propensity to produce challenging and ambiguous test specimens.” Study ammunition, for example, had “steel cartridge cases and steel-jacketed bullets (steel, being harder than brass, is less likely to be marked).” With fewer microscopic markings, the comparison’s difficulty increases. Even faced with these stacked odds, the overall false positive error rate was less than 1 percent.

Firearm Forensics Has Proven Reliable in the Courtroom. And in the Lab

Fantastic information. Loved seeing those stats and reading how they did it.

 

[girlhasnoname]

What other side of the coin? I simply linked the study with no commentary. People can make their own mind up after reading it should they desire.

AW I was responding to the OP GG

grannygates said:
I mean that ballistics in general is not reliable or reproducible.

not to you directly. Please stop ribbing me like you say you enjoy, I don't appreciate it, I'm here to have meaningful conversations. Thanks.

MOO

 

[AugustWest]

AW I was responding to the OP GG not to you directly. Please stop ribbing me like you say you enjoy, I don't appreciate it, I'm here to have meaningful conversations. Thanks.

MOO

I'm not ribbing you. I was confused because I just posted the study, and they you made a comment regarding the study. You didn't indicate who you were replying to.

 

[FrostedGlass]

Here is a link to the Ames 2 study at the National Institute of Health website, should anyone be interested:

Planning, design and logistics of a decision analysis study: The FBI/Ames study involving forensic firearms examiners

This paper describes design and logistical aspects of a decision analysis study to assess the performance of qualified firearms examiners working in accredited laboratories in the United States in terms of accuracy (error rate), repeatability, and reproducibility ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Gasp! PubMed Central!
158 citations.

I'd still be reading those come winter.

 

[Megnut]

Why would RA take/destroy/want Libby's phone?

He likely wasn't aware he'd been filmed.

If there was a A_S link, he might have been aware of the factory reset so nothing incriminating there in that regard.

If she had an additional phone, that's the one he wanted and that's the potentially missing one IMO.

JMO

 

[Salah11]

I don't think it was ever disclosed where Libby's phone was found. Was it?

I suspect she dropped it in the leaves where the girls were found or previously going up the muddy bank.

Regardless, I think BG couldn't locate it or he would have taken it with him and destroyed it.

The defense I believe said it was found under one of the girls bodies.

 

[Salah11]

Why would RA take/destroy/want Libby's phone?

He likely wasn't aware he'd been filmed.

If there was a A_S link, he might have been aware of the factory reset so nothing incriminating there in that regard.

If she had an additional phone, that's the one he wanted and that's the potentially missing one IMO.

JMO

It’s a difficult one to predict as surely if somebody was aiming a phone at you would notice. I mean it’s blurry the video so he wasn’t on top of them at that stage so maybe too busy making sure he didn’t topple off the bridge or he was watching Abby if the rumors she was close by him are true.

ETA
But I’m looking at it completely logically in the cold light of day where I’m not about to murder two young girls so I don’t have outside simulation making my thought process go haywire which I appreciate.

Moo

 

[WildHuncher]

Here is a link to the Ames 2 study at the National Institute of Health website, should anyone be interested:

Planning, design and logistics of a decision analysis study: The FBI/Ames study involving forensic firearms examiners

This paper describes design and logistical aspects of a decision analysis study to assess the performance of qualified firearms examiners working in accredited laboratories in the United States in terms of accuracy (error rate), repeatability, and reproducibility ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Waded through that to find “

Outcome to be reported in subsequent papers”​

 

[WildHuncher]

Another side of the Ames II coin:

<snipped>

And the recent studies were intentionally challenging. In the 2022 Ames II study, 173 trained firearm examiners compared a total of 8,640 fired cartridge cases and bullets. The firearms and ammunition were carefully chosen for their “propensity to produce challenging and ambiguous test specimens.” Study ammunition, for example, had “steel cartridge cases and steel-jacketed bullets (steel, being harder than brass, is less likely to be marked).” With fewer microscopic markings, the comparison’s difficulty increases. Even faced with these stacked odds, the overall false positive error rate was less than 1 percent.

Firearm Forensics Has Proven Reliable in the Courtroom. And in the Lab

And there we go. Less than 1 pct false positives. RA is very unlucky.

 

[WildHuncher]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1556-4029.15152

 

[Salah11]

And there we go. Less than 1 pct false positives. RA is very unlucky.

Thanks and this is why they want the bullet thrown out as again it shows their client is basically guilty. It’s just another nail in the guilty column IMO

 

[WildHuncher]

So, as just posted, the FBI’s exhaustive study shows a 1 percent, not 50 percent, false positive rate. It’s 99 to 1 the reported match is a true match.

So where would RA be without that cartridge?

BG is walking over the bridge, nearing the girls. RA put himself at the far end of the bridge, looking at fish. That was his closest approach to where BG is when we see him. Close, but not close enough to innocently account for him actually being the man in the picture on the south end of the bridge walking up to the girls. Bad luck, or bad alibi?

Even RA didn’t see BG go by him. Bad alibi?

LE is sure that the man in the picture is Mr. “Down the Hill,” the kidnapper and most likely killer of the girls. The kidnapping audio and the pictures are that close in time.

RA is the same size as BG and was dressed a lot like him. Bad luck.

Nobody saw two similarly dressed shortish middle aged men on the trail. That would have been a basis for doubt, but RA is unlucky. People saw one and only one BG-looking man arrive and go down the trail when RA says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw him leave when and where he says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw RA anywhere when the killer would have been in the woods with the girls. Bad luck.

Then there’s that damn bullet, ejected, lying in the leafy carpet between the bodies. 99 to 1 it can only have come from his gun. That was the cherry on the whipped cream on the sundae for me.

Real life never gives you 100 to zero. You don’t wait for that. It’s not reasonable.

 

[StarryStarryNight]

So, as just posted, the FBI’s exhaustive study shows a 1 percent, not 50 percent, false positive rate. It’s 99 to 1 the reported match is a true match.

So where would RA be without that cartridge?

BG is walking over the bridge, nearing the girls. RA put himself at the far end of the bridge, looking at fish. That was his closest approach to where BG is when we see him. Close, but not close enough to innocently account for him actually being the man in the picture on the south end of the bridge walking up to the girls. Bad luck, or bad alibi?

Even RA didn’t see BG go by him. Bad alibi?

LE is sure that the man in the picture is Mr. “Down the Hill,” the kidnapper and most likely killer of the girls. The kidnapping audio and the pictures are that close in time.

RA is the same size as BG and was dressed a lot like him. Bad luck.

Nobody saw two similarly dressed shortish middle aged men on the trail. That would have been a basis for doubt, but RA is unlucky. People saw one and only one BG-looking man arrive and go down the trail when RA says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw him leave when and where he says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw RA anywhere when the killer would have been in the woods with the girls. Bad luck.

Then there’s that damn bullet, ejected, lying in the leafy carpet between the bodies. 99 to 1 it can only have come from his gun. That was the cherry on the whipped cream on the sundae for me.

Real life never gives you 100 to zero. You don’t wait for that. It’s not reasonable.

Well thought out and perfectly communicated!
I totally agree!

 

[grannygates]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1556-4029.15152

View attachment 510282

From your link:

“Figure 2 also illustrates poor performance by a few examiners. The worst performers in each comparison set category declared: 4 of 18 (22%) and 4 of 22 (18%) nonmatching bullet sets to be Identifications; 3 of 11 (27%) and 3 of 20 (15%) of nonmatching cartridge case sets to be Identifications; 4 of 9 (44%) and 4 of 11 (36%) of matching bullet sets to be Eliminations; and 2 of 3 (67%) of matching cartridge case sets to be Eliminations.”

The issue for me is that the results are only as good as the human IMO

 

[grannygates]

So, as just posted, the FBI’s exhaustive study shows a 1 percent, not 50 percent, false positive rate. It’s 99 to 1 the reported match is a true match.

So where would RA be without that cartridge?

BG is walking over the bridge, nearing the girls. RA put himself at the far end of the bridge, looking at fish. That was his closest approach to where BG is when we see him. Close, but not close enough to innocently account for him actually being the man in the picture on the south end of the bridge walking up to the girls. Bad luck, or bad alibi?

Even RA didn’t see BG go by him. Bad alibi?

LE is sure that the man in the picture is Mr. “Down the Hill,” the kidnapper and most likely killer of the girls. The kidnapping audio and the pictures are that close in time.

RA is the same size as BG and was dressed a lot like him. Bad luck.

Nobody saw two similarly dressed shortish middle aged men on the trail. That would have been a basis for doubt, but RA is unlucky. People saw one and only one BG-looking man arrive and go down the trail when RA says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw him leave when and where he says he did. Bad luck.

Nobody saw RA anywhere when the killer would have been in the woods with the girls. Bad luck.

Then there’s that damn bullet, ejected, lying in the leafy carpet between the bodies. 99 to 1 it can only have come from his gun. That was the cherry on the whipped cream on the sundae for me.

Real life never gives you 100 to zero. You don’t wait for that. It’s not reasonable.

My snag is how can the FBI think 6 foot RL is BG and LE think 5’4” RA is BG and neither of them match the sketch nor the actual descriptive features of the man on the bridge other than they wear jeans and jackets.

 

[TTF14]

My snag is how can the FBI think 6 foot RL is BG and LE think 5’4” RA is BG and neither of them match the sketch nor the actual descriptive features of the man on the bridge other than they wear jeans and jackets.

Does the FBI actually believe this?

 

[WildHuncher]

From your link:

“Figure 2 also illustrates poor performance by a few examiners. The worst performers in each comparison set category declared: 4 of 18 (22%) and 4 of 22 (18%) nonmatching bullet sets to be Identifications; 3 of 11 (27%) and 3 of 20 (15%) of nonmatching cartridge case sets to be Identifications; 4 of 9 (44%) and 4 of 11 (36%) of matching bullet sets to be Eliminations; and 2 of 3 (67%) of matching cartridge case sets to be Eliminations.”

The issue for me is that the results are only as good as the human IMO

If you’re unlucky enough to get the worst guy in that massive study, it goes from 99 to 1 down to more like 70 to 30, yes.

It’s 172 to 1 you get someone other than him.

But the poorest performers are included in the 99 to 1. Throw them out and you get something that looks more like 100 to 0.

Are blood types useful? A murderer leaves a type A bloodstain. I’m accused, but I’m type B. Hordes of type Bs are around everywhere. Is the test no good? Or am I exonerated? It’s the latter.

If RA got the worst forensic tester, he’s still unlucky, just less spectacularly so.

 

[AugustWest]

Waded through that to find “

Outcome to be reported in subsequent papers”​

It's written by a government agency. If you dispute its accuracy, take it up with the National Institute of Health.

I posted the research so that @grannygates and others could read it for themselves, rather than take another's opinion piece on it as truth.