Originally, you were suspicious of Baxter's death. Looks like you had good reasons to question
the way he died.
"Asked why he couldn't rule out murder, Wagner said, "because murder can be made to look like a suicide. ... Someone who is knowledgeable about forensics can very well have the ability to stage a murder, commit a murder and stage it to look as if it was a suicide, understanding what the police are going to be looking for."
The experts found several things highly unusual. First the peculiar ammunition: not regular bullets but something called "rat-shot".
"This kind of ammunition cannot be easily or readily traced back to the gun from which it was fired," explained Wecht.
"It's not as frequently used by people for any reason. It's not the type of ammunition one finds in guns - it has a specific purpose: shooting at snakes and rodents in order to get a distribution pattern of the small pellets contained within the nose portion of the bullet. It's not something that a person is likely to have and to use if they intended to kill themselves," said Wecht.
Other unanswered questions include mysterious wounds on one hand and unexplained shards of glass in Baxter's shirt." reasons to look deeper to rule out murder.
But Wagner says glaring police errors may make it harder to close the books on the Baxter case.
First, nobody wrapped the hands to preserve evidence.
"When the body did finally arrive for the autopsy, the hands hadn't even been bagged," said Wagner.
"I'm just amazed frankly that the hands were not bagged," Wecht said.
"From what I've seen looking at the vehicle, it doesn't appear they even fingerprinted it," continued Wagner.
"The police narrative is vague for this type of investigation. It's important to get a timeline
of the events that took place through the course of investigation - that appears to be lacking in the original report from the crime scene. Without that, without being able to piece together what was done when, it's very difficult to understand the events that took place and how they unfolded from that report," said Wagner.
The gun and other evidence were moved before photos were taken. The body was moved as well. There's a puzzling mention of blood outside the car from someone laying Baxter on the ground.
Wagner says that only should have happened if rescuers pulled him out to revive him. But even that scenario doesn't add up -...the body is back in the car when the funeral home arrives "and that's something that is not explained in the police reports," said Wagner. "
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