text: Ballistics evidence Ballistics experts have questioned whether the bullet which killed Lieutenant Oliver could have come from Workman's gun. Many years after the trial, Dr. Cyril Wecht, a board member of the American Board of Legal Medicine, has testified that, "[I]t is my professional opinion, based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the gunshot wound to [Lt.] Ronald D. Oliver is not consistent with the type of ammunition used by Mr. Philip R. Workman. I do not believe that it was Mr. Workman's gun that fired the shot that fatally wounded [Lt.] Oliver." As Dr. Wecht was giving evidence many years subsequent to the death of Lt. Oliver, he did not examine the body in person. Rather, his professional opinion was given on the basis of studying photographs of the deceased.
  Dr. Wecht based his opinion on the fact that Workman was using a .45 caliber gun and hollow point ammunition and that such bullets fired from such a gun more than 90% of the time do not pass through the body but remain within the shooting victim. Dr. Wecht's professional opinion was that when hollow point ammunition fired from a .45 caliber gun does pass through the body of the victim, the exit wound is almost always larger than the entry wound. According to medical examiner Dr. James Bell, the exit wound on Lt. Oliver's body was smaller than the entry wound. Such a wound is consistent with the .38 caliber weapons being fired by the police.
  In January 2005, a retired Memphis police officer who went to jail for manufacturing phony drivers' certificates swore in an affidavit that the Memphis police covered up details of Oliver's shooting. Neither Officer Stoddard's nor Officer Parker's revolvers were examined in the course of the criminal investigation.
  Doubts of jurors, prosecutors, judges, and the victim's family