CAPTCHEE...
I agree with everything you said as well. The point is that more than one person has a rifle in that area and who is to say that the man with the muzzle loader was the ONLY person to fire his rifle into the air at that time? He may be the guilty party or he may not be the guilty party... that's just something we do NOT know yet.
My own .338 Winchester Magnum in my pre-'64 Model 70 with a 26-inch barrel can supposedly fire a 200 grain bullet almost 4 miles (3.8 miles, I seem to remember)... and who would hear the faint report of a rifle fired almost 4 miles away?
IF they establish it actually was a muzzle-loading rifle that fired the fatal shot, then that definitely "narrows" the field considerably aligning it more surely with the muzzle-loader shooter and would more surely cause the man who admits he fired his muzzle loader into the air be the guilty party, but as you have pointed out, no such evidence has been found so far.
Hopefully, we'll hear more about this... especially since it occurred fairly close to my home north of Dayton, Ohio.
MAGNUMDOOD...
Please read the above text as well as what I've written down here for you.
I believe we shouldn't jump to any conclusions until we see more evidence that proves the muzzle loader owner did the "dirty deed".
Certainly, the "cloud" of guilt
SEEMS to be his, but what SEEMS to be may not
ACTUALLY be and we should keep that in mind before being so absolutely SURE the muzzle-loader owner did the shooting. To do less is to jump to a conclusion that isn't backed up by
ANY actual evidence other than that the muzzle-loader shooter ADMITS he fired a shot into the air at approximately the same time the girl was killed.
To ASSUME the meager fact that he fired a shot at the time the girl was hit and killed over a mile away which makes the muzzle loader owner "guilty" is jumping to a conclusion as wide as the Grand Canyon!
Since neither of us were there and no autopsy report has (so far) been released, we can't jump to
ANY conclusions until more
CONCLUSIVE evidence is given.
What we must all keep in mind is that this was a terrible accident. The man didn't intentionally take aim and shoot the girl. I feel reasonably sure he feels TERRIBLE about this whole situation.
As an experienced traditional muzzle-loader owner/shooter (flintlocks & cap-locks), I can't imagine what he was doing "cleaning" a loaded rifle... a very stupid thing to attempt to do as is evidenced by this tragic accident!
The "bottom line" is... you may be RIGHT or you may be WRONG... but let's not get out the "hangin' rope" quite yet... ok, Tex?
Ron T.