Skip to main content
← Tyler Robinson

Backpack — Photo Evidence

Photo evidence filed under Backpack — 1 images on this page. Scan the list and open any image for the full picture and its write-up.

About This Cluster​

The backpack is a small object carrying an unusually large share of the argument in this case. The morning frames from the Utah Valley University parking lot show a light blue JanSport pack with a water bottle in the side pocket, and researchers describe it as visibly slack — roughly half empty. The stairwell frames shortly before the shooting show a dark pack that reads as close to full. If those are the same pack on the same person, the volume has to work, and that is the question this cluster exists to let a reader examine directly.

The image filed here is a close-up product-style photograph of the same JanSport model in light blue, used as a reference for size, shape and how the pack sits when carried. Investigation notes put the usable internal length at about 17 inches, which is the number that matters, because a Mauser Model 98 in .30-06 is roughly 43 to 49 inches assembled and still about 28 to 32 inches as a barreled action once the stock is removed. Researchers argue from those figures that the rifle could not have travelled in this pack and that the state's account therefore requires either a second person or a weapon already on site; the state has not adopted either alternative, no court has ruled on the geometry, and the defense has not publicly staked its case on this argument. Note also that removing shorts and adding jeans would make a pack emptier, not fuller, which is the step in the official sequence commentators say does not work.

Use this reference image to fix the pack's real dimensions in mind, then go back to the surveillance frames in Stairs, Walking and Clothing and judge the fill level yourself. The written case is at Backpack and Rifle Impossibility and Stairs Guy, and the weapon itself is covered at Weapon and Rifle and in Gun Found.