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NARRATOR: At the Dallas Pistol & Revolver Club in 1991,
Trey Cooley, a young spectator, was watching
a shooting competition, seated behind an air gun range.
He was struck and killed by a stray bullet.
[screams]
This is how ballistics, lasers, and forensic animation
solved the riddle of the magic bullet.
[theme music]
14-year-old Trey Cooley.
Look at him, and you'll see the All-American boy.
Trey attended Boles Junior High School
in Arlington, Texas, near Dallas.
He played cello in the school orchestra,
played baseball, and was a Boy Scout.
BUTCH COOLEY: At that age, every kid
has the whole world open to him.
He could have done anything he wanted to do.
NARRATOR: Most of all, he enjoyed
spending time with his family.
Trey and his father, Butch, were best friends.
BUTCH COOLEY: We did everything together.
NARRATOR: September 29, 1991.
Butch Cooley woke early that Saturday morning--
-Get up.
NARRATOR: --then went to wake Trey.
The two shared a passion for shooting.
-Go or don't you want to go?
NARRATOR: Butch was judging a competition.
He gave Trey a choice-- to sleep in or tag along.
Trey chose to go with his father.
-Trey started shooting when he was seven.
He enjoyed it.
He shot his first deer when he was eight.
He wanted to be a pistol competitor.
And he was pretty good at it.
NARRATOR: At the Dallas Pistol & Revolver Club,
Trey volunteered to help out by running results
from judges to the official scorer.
In between assignments, he sat in the air gun building
to get out of the hot Texas sun.
He sat just inside the door near two women who were working
as scorers, but behind people shooting air pistols--
nothing more than pellet and BB guns.
Then, a blood-curdling scream.
[screams]
Trey Cooley slumped to the floor,
blood flowing from his temple.
His baseball cap had a tiny but telltale hole.
Butch Cooley was outside the building,
just a few yards from his son when he heard the screaming.
Although Butch Cooley spent 21 years as a state trooper
and was trained to handle emergencies,
no training could prepare him for what he saw next.
-When I got there, I saw that he'd been shot.
I checked his pulse.
I knew it wasn't good.
TONI COOLEY: Butch walked in, and I
asked him, what are you doing home?
And I said, oh, where is Trey?
And then he came in. And he told me.
He said, um, there's been an accident.
And, um, I was thinking, you know, well, he's cut his foot,
cut his hand, or broke his arm, you know.
And I said, well, it's OK.
He's-- he'll be OK.
NARRATOR: Trey was rushed by ambulance
to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
TONI COOLEY: He was just lying there.
Um, he was breathing, or the machine was breathing for him.
His little hands were so warm.
And he just looked like he was asleep.
NARRATOR: Six hours later, Trey died.
-I just wanted to tell him that I was very, very proud of him.
I loved him dearly.
-My only son, my best friend, my fishing buddy,
my hunting partner. Just a void.
NARRATOR: Trey Cooley was seated in the club's
designated safety area.
It was an accident that shouldn't have happened.
Detective Tom Pease and crime investigator David Taylor
had a tough job-- to figure out where the bullet that killed
Trey Cooley came from and to determine
if the shooting was accidental or intentional.
Butch Cooley spent two decades as a state trooper.
Was it possible the shooting had something
to do with an enemy he possibly made during his tenure?
Or had the bullet come from outside,
from one of the outdoor shooting ranges, or possibly,
the nearby railroad tracks where kids
had a history of taking shots at the air gun building.
-Uh, the biggest problem with this range or this scene
was the size of it.
It wasn't contained inside a house, inside an apartment.
It was outside, and it covered several hundred feet.
NARRATOR: The bullet removed from Trey's skull
would provide some answers and raise new questions.
The bullet was small, about half an inch long, but lethal.
Larry Fletcher is the firearms expert
who conducted the ballistics examination.
-The bullet was not that damaged.
Uh, the bullet was, uh, ridden-- rather remarkable condition.
NARRATOR: This is a .45 caliber bullet
after striking a cement wall.
It is badly mangled, especially when compared to the bullet
that killed Trey Cooley.
That lack of damage could be telling, except for one thing.
This was not a typical .45 caliber bullet.
-This particular bullet is a hand-loaded or handmade
bullet-- it's not a commercial-made bullet--
in which they could add other materials to the lead
and make it much harder.
Uh, it can withstand a lot of damage, uh, upon impact.
NARRATOR: Who makes and uses these types of bullets?
Butch Cooley knew.
-Competitive shooters like to-- to load their own ammunition,
uh, probably the reason being, uh, the cost savings.
NARRATOR: Most of the competitive shooters
on the outside ranges that day were using handmade bullets.
So there was little doubt that the bullet came from somewhere
here rather than from kids on the railroad tracks.
Police collected the weapons and ammunition samples
from the shooters in the competition.
When Larry Fletcher examined the bullets used that day
on the outside ranges, he noticed something else.
-The powder charge which, uh, increased the velocity
of this particular type of bullet.
NARRATOR: Basically, the shooters
use bullets with more gunpowder.
More gunpowder means these bullets travel farther
and faster than a regular .45 caliber bullet.
Fletcher's next task was to match the bullet that killed
Trey to one of about a dozen guns.
Each of the guns from the shooting competition
were test fired and compared to the bullet
taken from Trey Cooley's skull.
Fletcher had trouble getting an exact match
because the extra gun powder created extremely high
temperatures during the firing of the gun,
actually melting some of the distinguishing marks.
But Fletcher noticed a red wax on the bullet that killed Trey.
All shooters use a lubricating wax, but only one of the guns
used a red wax.
Larry Fletcher found the gun that fired the fatal shot.
-At that point, I was pretty much convinced.
NARRATOR: A pistol competitor named Dan Smith was using
that gun on the day of the competition.
And he was firing on this outdoor range,
just behind the air gun building.
But Smith told police he couldn't
have fired the fatal shot.
LARRY FLETCHER: He felt that all his shots had made the target,
that there were no errant rounds.
NARRATOR: But something just didn't add up to Butch Cooley.
He spent his entire life around guns
and won awards for marksmanship and gun safety.
He knew shooting ranges are supposed to be safe.
Accidents aren't supposed to happen.
It just didn't make sense.
Police were satisfied that Trey Cooley's death was an accident.
The ballistics report said the fatal bullet
came from a gun fired from an outdoor range
during the competition.
But how?
The owner of the gun said he didn't miss a shot.
And the range was designed to contain any errant bullet.
First, there's a barrier between the air
gun building and the firing range.
It's called a berm.
It's a small mountain of dirt, about 12 feet high.
The berm sits right behind the targets
in the event a shooter misses either to the left or right.
Directly above the targets are a series of wooden planks,
fastened end-to-end and side-by-side.
These are called baffles and they're
designed to catch bullets fired a little high of the target
before they leave the range.
Then there are two additional sets
of baffles, one just a few yards in front
of the firing line and another, called an eyebrow,
directly over the firing line.
Ken Buster is a safety management consultant
with years of experience as a shooter
and with a special expertise in firing ranges.
-Between the eyebrow, the baffles, and the height
of the berm, the vast majority of any stray bullet
would be stopped.
-Safety should be the number 1 priority in everybody's mind
anytime that you-- that you participate
in marksmanship as a sport.
Something was wrong there.
NARRATOR: Butch Cooley began a personal crusade
to learn the truth.
He needed to know how a bullet could bypass the range's safety
features and kill his only son.
Butch hired Attorney Mike Schmidt to find out where or if
the safety system had failed.
Schmidt put together an investigative team.
Steve Irwin was the first member.
As an accident reconstructionist,
his job is to create an exact computerized three-dimensional
scale model of the air gun building and the firing ranges.
Using laser technology, precision measuring devices,
and sophisticated computer programs,
Irwin would also uncover the path of the bullet.
-You wind up starting at, unfortunately,
the-- the young boy getting shot,
and then working your way backwards.
NARRATOR: Police had already identified
some important clues.
The outside wall of the air gun building
was riddled with bullet holes from all angles.
Irwin needed to know exactly which one was the culprit.
Police also found bullet holes inside the building--
in a sheetrock strip to protect the lighting fixture
and in a wall that separated the indoor range
from a storage shed.
There was also a fresh gouge in an ordinary ceiling tile.
Irwin's laser survey equipment traced the bullet's path
from where Trey was sitting through all those points--
from Trey through the sheetrock strip, off the ceiling tile,
and through the back wall.
It seemed unlikely, but it matched the evidence.
-It-- it was roughly a straight line.
But I couldn't see from the interior wall
to the exterior wall.
And it-- it wasn't until we got it back to the office
and got it mapped that-- that it formed
this remarkably straight line.
NARRATOR: A straight line that led directly
to one of the bullet holes in the aluminum siding
then down to the shooting range behind air gun building.
It led to the range where Dan Smith was shooting, but oddly
enough, not to the firing line.
The laser pinpointed a path that landed
10 yards in front of the firing line.
When Ken Buster was brought into the investigation,
he immediately inspected the firing range
to see if there was any way a bullet could get past all
of the range's safety features.
Buster delivered a scathing report.
-At the time and now, I still think
that was the worst range that I have ever seen.
NARRATOR: He found dozens of potentially deadly safety
flaws.
KEN BUSTER: The berm separating the back range
from the front range was not the standard height,
which is supposed to be 20 feet.
NARRATOR: The berm behind the air gun building
was only 12 feet high.
The baffles were far below standard.
The wooden planks should have had
a steel or concrete backing.
And look closely at the planks themselves.
They had separated, leaving big gaps.
A bullet could easily pass through.
KEN BUSTER: In this case, the baffle might well has not
have been there and served no purpose at all.
NARRATOR: And Buster was appalled by the bullet
holes in the back of the building.
KEN BUSTER: Several of these holes had been plugged.
That means to me as a safety person, as a range person,
as a long-time shooter that they knew
that bullets were getting out of that range.
And they accepted that fact and continued to shoot.
NARRATOR: The laser analysis projected the bullet path
to the middle of the outdoor range,
well in front of the firing line.
How could this be?
It was due to a monumental blunder.
During the competition, shooters were required
to fire from several distances-- first, from the firing
line at 25 yards; then they moved forward to 20 yards;
and finally, to 15 yards.
The laser study showed that the fatal bullet
was fired from the 15-yard line.
The architectural model shows the problem clearly.
By firing from the 15-yard line, shooters
had to move in front of the eyebrow
and the first set of protected baffles.
And Irwin's computer also showed another frightening reality.
From the 15-yard line, you could see
the back of the air gun building.
KEN BUSTER: If you can see it, you can shoot it.
And any projectile that might leave the range in that area
was going to hit that building.
NARRATOR: The laser showed the bullet flew
under the last baffle, over the berm, and into the building.
It involved a bizarre trajectory.
It meant that the shooter missed the target high and to the left
by more than 5 feet-- a terrible miss.
How could a trained marksman miss a target
by that much from only 15 yards away?
Part of that answer was found in the gun itself.
Close examination revealed it had been modified.
-It's like taking a standard car, making it a hot rod.
NARRATOR: Some competitive shooters filed down
parts of the gun to make it easier
to pull the trigger quickly.
DAVID TAYLOR: They've, uh, got it set to where they go off
so easily, where they fire two rounds instead of one.
It feeds so fast.
NARRATOR: The result is called doubling, which
sometimes occurs as the gun recoils.
A recoil is the backward force created by the explosion
pushing the gun up in the air.
Each type of gun recoils differently.
-A .45 creates a recoil up and to the left.
NARRATOR: Kirk Parks had the task
of producing the computerized proof,
a fact-based animation of what happened.
His firm specializes in forensic animation.
Parks videotaped hundreds of .45 caliber pistol shots using
the same type pistol and ammunition.
He used this footage to create an exact computerized
reproduction of the recoil for the animation.
-And we shot the video from the top of the weapon.
And we shot it from the side.
And we shot it from the front.
NARRATOR: Next, Parks created wire-frame models
of a competitive shooter in action,
and then animated Irwin's laser studies of the firing
range and the bullet path to complete the picture.
KIRK PARKS: It produced the exact results
necessary to generate the bullet path that
was surveyed-- up and to the left.
DAVID TAYLOR: I can't say for sure that the gun doubled.
But all of the evidence, uh, seems to indicate that it did.
And it fired during the uncontrollable recoil.
NARRATOR: This forensic animation
was able to show what happened to Trey Cooley
on the morning of September 29, 1991.
But the animation showed that the bullet
took a remarkable journey, one which almost defied belief.
When Trey Cooley entered the Dallas Pistol & Revolver
Club on September 29, 1991, the range
was a tragedy just waiting to strike.
Outside on the firing range behind the air gun building,
Dan Smith, one of the last competitors of the day,
steps up to the 15-yard line.
This moves him in front of two sets of safety baffles.
Using a modified gun, Smith takes aim
and squeezes the trigger.
In a fraction of a second, another shot
is fired during the recoil phase of the original shot.
It happened so quickly, the shooter
doesn't know it left the gun.
The bullet misses the target high and to the left.
Traveling upwards, it passes underneath the last set
of protected baffles and just 3 inches over the berm.
It's speeding at 1,200 feet per second.
The bullet blasts through the aluminum siding,
goes through a storage room, misses a broom and some pipes
by less than an inch, and then breaks through a second wall,
entering the air gun range.
Then the bullet does something unbelievable.
It strikes an ordinary ceiling tile.
And for some unknown reason, it doesn't
blast straight through into the roof.
Instead, it skids along the tile for 7 inches
before mysteriously changing direction, making
a 10-degree turn and begins a downward path.
It slows to about 900 feet per second,
penetrates a plaster wall, and enters Trey Cooley's head.
[music playing]
The Cooley family filed a negligence suit against the gun
club and individuals involved with the competition.
The judge who presided over the civil case
was impressed with the visual and computerized evidence.
-I've been on the bench 6 and 1/2 years,
and I would say that's in the top 2 or 3 or 4,
in terms of just the-- the professionalism
and the effectiveness of-- of the,
uh demonstrative evidence brought into court.
NARRATOR: The Cooley's attorney says the forensic animation
and model explained this tragedy in a way nothing else could.
-I could not have possibly gotten the result
that I got on behalf of the Cooley family without them.
NARRATOR: The animation also helped
Butch Cooley understand what had happened to his son.
But there is still little peace for Trey's dad.
-What's peace?
It is taking one day at a time.
NARRATOR: Change just one thing and Trey
Cooley might be alive today.
The range.
-It wouldn't have happened because I would not
have allowed that competition to occur on that particular range.
NARRATOR: The gun.
-They may not even be aware that it's
double-firing or slam-firing on them.
They may think it's properly functioning.
NARRATOR: The bullet.
-If it had been a softer bullet, they may not have ricocheted
as much, would not have had the velocity.
NARRATOR: Or if the shooter had been standing
at the proper firing line, the shot would have hit the baffle
or flown over the building.
But why did this fatal bullet change direction
as it hit the soft ceiling tile instead of blasting straight
through as it did with the hard walls?
-Bullets can do incredible things--
things they're not expected to do.
NARRATOR: These thoughts haunt Butch Cooley.
No explanation can ease the pain felt
by a father who woke his son early--
-Want to go or not?
NARRATOR: --one September morning.
-No, no, I want to go.
-I should have let him sleep.