The weapon was a single shot, single barreled shotgun of a type designed to break down into smaller pieces to fit into a carrying case. Purdey's, the English gun manufacturers, have searched their archives and said it is not one of theirs, and was most likely an imported European model. The make and dimensions of the gun are currently unknown, although a reasonable estimate of the length would be around 34" – 40".

Mrs. Shenton must have been around 3' – 4' away from Joe when he fired the shot that killed her for it to be fatal, but not instantly so, and for it to cause the numerous tiny holes in her back described by Patrick Pink. She must have been walking or facing away from him and virtually at the top of the stairs for her to have fallen down them. We know that she was still clinging on to life when she was removed from the flat, as her face is uncovered in the news photos, and it seems that she died in the ambulance from loss of blood rather than the impact of the wound.

It would have been difficult for Joe to have inflicted the injuries described at the inquest on himself by holding the gun up to his head; for a start, he was not a large man and probably wouldn't have been able to reach the trigger. This has, of course, given rise to many rumours that someone else fired the fatal shots. However, he could quite easily have rested the butt of the gun on the floor or on his foot with the barrel pointing upwards, leaned over on to the gun and pulled the trigger with his thumb; this ties in with the wound in the right temple described by Francis Camps, as Joe was right handed. He needn't even necessarily have been standing up; the scenario becomes even more likely if we consider he make have been crouching or kneeling.

Patrick Pink's timing in recent accounts seems a little off the mark. If they are accurate, then the time elapsed from Mrs. Shenton falling down the stairs to the second shot cannot have been more then eight or ten seconds – it is a short flight of stairs which would only take a few seconds to run up. Joe was not familiar with guns, and for him to have reloaded, aimed and fired in that short a time, particularly as he was probably by then in shock himself and shaking or fumbling, is highly improbably in less than eighteen, and more likely thirty, seconds. If Pink were on the phone in the office to the police or ambulance, by the time he had given his name, address and description of events, there would have been ample time for Joe to carry out his tragic task. My feelings are that Pink has probably become totally confused about the whole series of events over the years, and misremembered the timing.

So why was the gun downstairs? And when did it get there? Pink says in the prologue to the book that Joe took it downstairs that morning. In the final chapter of the book, the narrative has it in the studio all night – which is a little baffling, as the final chapter is based on Pink's prologue. It seems to have generally resided in Joe's bedroom, as some visitors remember seeing it propped up against the fireplace in that room, and of those who never made it to the third floor – which, it has to be said, is the majority of casual visitors – most don't remember seeing it at all. He was known to sometimes keep it in the studio with him to repel any unwanted midnight guests who might show up (none ever did, as far as I know), but he seems to have been generally careful to put it back upstairs before any musicians arrived (maybe for fear they might grab it and use it on him, perhaps?) Joe was expecting Chad Carson & The Senators for a session later that morning, so it may be that it just hadn't been put away from the night before. If Pink is correct and Joe brought it down in the morning, it begs the question why, unless he had specific plans for it.

More to the point, why was he carrying spare ammunition with him? I would expect spare ammo to be kept in the same place as the gun, namely in the bedroom. Joe had rarely fired a gun in his life, even as a youth in the hunting atmosphere of the West Country. In fact, he was by all accounts somewhat scared of guns, though not averse to using one unloaded to tweak out a particularly emotional performance from a singer. Be that as it may, for some reason, there were at least two shots hanging around the second floor that day, whether the gun was unloaded when he brought it down or not. If the gun had been around the studio during the night, it might be more likely that he would have shot with him, but if he'd grabbed it in the morning and was as confused as everyone seems to think, would he have thought of grabbing ammunition or not? Pink has never made any mention of seeing spare shot around; and if Joe really was planning on suicide, being the perfectionist he was, he probably would have assumed he would only need one shot anyway.

SHOTGUN WOUNDS

From the Encyclopaedia Of Forensic Science by Brian Lane (1992, Headline Books)

Shot has little penetrating power, and most of the discharge, including the wads, will be found embedded in the soft flesh. The pattern of a shotgun wound will be markedly different depending on the range from which the gun was fired. The discharge of a shotgun between contact and a few inches does not allow the shot to scatter, resulting in a solid mass of metal and wadding ripping into the body causing extensive destruction of bone and tissue, the hot gases burning and the powder particles tattooing the skin. In cases of suicide where a shotgun muzzle has been applied to the forehead or roof of the mouth, the greater part of the head may be destroyed.

At close range, between two and three feet, the shot creates a ragged wound between one and one-half inches in diameter with scorching and tattooing. Beyond a range of three feet the shot begins to spread and at four feet the central wound is surrounded by small perforations; there is no powder marking. Further than about four feet the chances of fatality are markedly less (unless a major artery is severed), the shot spreading to cause extensive, painful perforations of the skin. Although a lot depends on the choke of the individual weapon, a rough guide to the range of discharge with a shotgun is to measure in inches the diameter of the wound between the furthest pellet marks, subtract one and the result will indicate the distance in yards. Thus a six-inch wound would result from a range of five yards.

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