Gangland shootings a cowardly shot in the back

Waco – The fusillade that penetrated the walls of an east Waco apartment, grazed a woman's leg and traumatized two small children for life was actually a cowardly attack on four men who were hemmed in, sitting in a car, shot like fish in a barrel.

The two men who were killed were shot in the back, according to the testimony of a forensic pathologist from the Southwest Institute of Forensic Science.

When death found Tyus Sneed, the bullets ripped into the tissue of his back and shoulder and exited the right side of his neck, severing the aorta.

According to Dr. Jill Urban, the longest a person with such a wound could have lived would have been less than a minute.

Though she could not offer any conclusion as to which wound came first, the most horrible to behold was the left to right shot that shattered his upper jaw, ripping into his lips and leaving his mouth a bloody mass of destroyed teeth that looked as though they were piano keys ripped from the instrument and shoved over an octave or two.

Color pictures of his ruined body showed to jurors and his family on an overhead projector depicted Mr. Sneed reclining on the autopsy table, his mouth shot away, hands bagged awaiting testing for gunshot residue to determine if he happened to return the withering fire that cut him down, and a blank stare on his bewildered face.

In all, he suffered 8 bullet wounds, as did his companion in the death seat, Keenan Huber.

Both men were spun from left to right in a spiraling pattern that followed the path of the bullets, as the shooters hosed them down from the left rear quarter panel of the car after the initial frontal attack.

Mr. Huber also suffered a through and through wound that entered the top right side of his back and exited the base of his throat. Another bullet pierced the right side of the upper back and plowed through the lung. Yet another severed his aorta and destroyed his left lung.

Because the bullets are spinning when they rip into human flesh, the doctor explained, they cause huge, ugly mushrooming exit wounds that may vary far and wide from what would be a linear path through the body. A small and surgical looking round hole a bullet made on the inside of a bicep has shattered the humerus bone of the upper arm, leaving a fluted and pulpy pyramid of ruined flesh in the middle of a well-developed young man's arm.

As he fell, Mr. Huber appears to have thrown his left hand up to cover his face and two bullets ripped into it, one making a hole through and through, the other neatly clipping off the index fingertip.

Toxic screening of body fluids revealed only the active ingredient THC and broken down chemicals from marijuana. Neither man had been drinking alcohol or using other drugs, according to test results.

Point in the circle - Saints John the Baptist and Evangelist

Long dowels looking like bizarre spears or arrows made mannequins look like some kind of bizarre porcupines seated on top of the prosecution counsel table so jurors could see the devastating effects of the merciless firing squad.

All members of the public have been prohibited from carrying cell phones into the third floor of the McLennan County Courthouse. Judge Ralph T. Strother gave the order because of the  concern expressed by jurors that misguided persons might take photographs of them and use them to possibly locate them and seek revenge.(click here for a previous report on jury selection

Any person not a representative of the news media who is caught with a cell phone on the third floor of the courthouse will be ejected from the building and their phone confiscated, the judge said.

Presentation of evidence and testimony will resume again on Friday morning at 8:30 a.m.

This man often prays at public places in Waco. He prayed in this location yesterday as prosecutors presented evidence of the wounds that led to the deaths in People of the State of Texas v. Ricky Cummings