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Exhibit Photo: Rifle in a Box on the Grass

Photo of a computer monitor displaying a court exhibit image of a black scoped bolt action rifle lying inside an open long cardboard box on grass, with a yellow exhibit label

What This Image Shows​

A photograph of a computer monitor displaying a court exhibit image. The exhibit shows a black bolt-action rifle with a dark synthetic stock and a mounted scope, lying inside an open long cardboard box on a patch of grass. A yellow label reading PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT is affixed to the lower right of the displayed image.

The rifle at the centre of the case is described in the government's own summary as an older model imported Mauser .30-06 calibre bolt-action rifle, recovered wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus. Researchers have gone further into the identification and argued that the weapon is not the wartime K98 it has often been described as but a commercially produced Mauser 98 — a distinction that matters for the account of where it came from.

A separate and important caution attaches to rifle images from this case: at least one widely circulated photograph of a scoped rifle on cardboard was traced by researchers to stock photography rather than to the evidence, and images have been reposted as the weapon that are not. This one carries an exhibit label, which is more provenance than most, but the underlying filings remain the place to verify it. See Mauser .30-06 Rifle, Rifle Fingerprints Mismatch, and Gun Discovery Sequence.

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