Inside look: New technology at Jeffco lab links shell casings to crimes across state
FOX31 got into the lab to see how it all works.
'I place the cartridge case in this holder,' Jefferson County Regional Lab Forensic Scientist Erin Mulligan explained during a demonstration. 'Inside the equipment, there are some light sources as well as the camera.'
The 3-D images from this new lab equipment go into ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, known as NIBIN. Cartridge cases are entered from sites all around the country. Scientists can then search them against other cases in the system to try to link the casings to shooting scenes.
'This takes information for maybe two different crime scenes,' Brent Beavers, Special agent in charge for ATF's Denver Field Division said. 'It might be one has more information, one has less. You put it together. Investigators talk. Now there's an opportunity to solve crimes and prevent future ones.'
According to ATF, 13,213 pieces of evidence were submitted to NIBIN in Colorado in 2024. The database generated 60.1% leads in the system for law enforcement to follow up on.
For the 2025 fiscal year-to-date, 4,740 pieces of evidence have been submitted to the NIBIN database in Colorado, with 48.8% of casings generating leads.
'For Jefferson County, for metro Denver and the state of Colorado, this is a huge success to have this machine in place,' Beavers said. 'I think citizens will be safer because of it.'
Looking at the data from April, the Jefferson County Crime Lab told FOX31 they were able to return results to local agencies, on average, 4.7 days after receiving a cartridge case in the lab.
'We're getting a lot more calls than, say, ten, 15 years ago,' Arvada Police PIO David Snelling said. 'We're finding a lot of shell casings. You can't always track suspects via cell phone video. When we can link them through this technology to the scene, it's incredible.'
Arvada police shared a case from back in 2022, where the NIBIN database helped connect a suspect to two crimes. A suspect followed a victim in their car and shot at the victim's vehicle on 57th Ave. One of the bullets lodged in the rear seat headrest on the driver's side of the car.
'In the original case that we had in March of 2022, we never found a gun and so it was put together by shell casings,' Snelling said.
Then, in 2023, DPD had a case where a suspect shot at a bar on Sheridan Boulevard. The casings found at that scene were connected to the case in Arvada.
Through the NIBIN database and the investigative work, they were able to link the two cases together and identify a suspect. This year, the suspect pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
'The shell casing, it leaves an individual signature on that on that from the weapon,' Snelling said. 'So, this technology is absolutely amazing to be able to match 1 to 1.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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