[Teotwawki]

did not answer when asked if a shotgun he had access to would match up with the murder weapon

I've wondered about ballistic matching on shotguns. I would guess they could chemically match the shot recovered from similar rounds in the perps possession, but that's general enough to allow reasonable doubt. Can they match striations from bullet to barrel on a shotgun if you're firing buck shot?

[ltc8k6]

Maybe they had fired shells at the scene?