2nd day of prelim in Pier 14 murder will hear from Med Examiner, crime scene investigators and criminalist. pic.twitter.com/ClLdpaMVQz — Vic Lee (@vicleeabc7) August 26, 2015 
 
 SFPD Inspector testifies in Pier 14 murder case that the bullet hit pier walkway first then richochetted striking Kate Steinle in the back. — Vic Lee (@vicleeabc7) August 26, 2015 
 
 The single bullet that struck and killed Kate Steinle, 32, in broad daylight on San Francisco's Pier 14 in July appears to have ricocheted off of the pier walkway prior to hitting her, according to expert testimony provided Wednesday during the second day of the murder suspect's preliminary hearing.Officials say the gun Francisco Lopez Sanchez is accused of firing was not actually pointed at Steinle, but at the ground.San Francisco police criminalist and ballistics expert Gerald Andrew Smith displayed the gun that was used in the shooting. It was a black Sig Sauer P239 .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol that had been recovered by divers from the San Francisco Bay near Pier 14 the day after the homicide.Smith said one round had been fired from the seven cartridge magazine clip and that the gun was still functioning normally.Under cross examination, public defender Matt Gonzalez repeatedly asked Smith if it was possible the gun could accidentally discharge without Sanchez pulling the trigger. "No matter how the trigger was pulled, that's the only way the gun could have been fired," Smith said.On Tuesday, the prosecution established through the testimonies of police investigators that Sanchez was at Pier 14 when Steinle was shot to death on July 1.Cellphone images taken by tourists and displayed in court showed a man who appeared to be Sanchez sitting on the bench and then walking off after the shooting.One of the tourists later identified Sanchez after he was arrested at Embarcadero and Townsend streets that evening.An investigator also testified that Sanchez had confessed during his interrogation, which is the same thing he told ABC7 News during a jailhouse interview.A police inspector testified that the bullet struck the pier walkway first at least 15 feet away and then ricocheted striking Steinli in the back.Gonzales surmised that the gun was not pointed at Steinle, but at the ground when it was fired.San Francisco's chief medical examiner, Dr. Michael Hunter, said the autopsy showed Steinle suffered a fatal gunshot wound to her back and that the bullet struck her aorta and lodged in her abdomen.Hunter said the bullet that struck Steinle was traveling in a slightly upward direction. "It is an atypical entrance wound, which to me has a lot of significance," Hunter said on the stand. "This is anything but a classic entrance wound."He said that due to the "rectangular" shape of the entry wound, before the bullet entered the victim's body, it either ricocheted off a hard surface, traveled through something, or there was a defect with the barrel of the gun.He said, in his expert opinion, that it was consistent with a ricocheted bullet.A photograph of the bullet, which normally would be cylindrical, shows that the one taken from Steinle's body is crushed and covered in striations.The preliminary hearing will continue Thursday at 10 a.m., at which point the defense it expected to call additional witnesses to the stand. 

 Former SFPD Crime Lab head testifies in Pier14 prelim hearing he believes suspect accidentally shot Kate Steinle. pic.twitter.com/L5ZBhUIcGD — Vic Lee (@vicleeabc7) August 27, 2015 
 
 A ballistics expert who testified Thursday at the preliminary hearing of a man suspected in the fatal shooting of a woman at San Francisco's Pier 14 last month said the shooting appears to have been accidental and that Kate Steinle does not appear to have been targeted.The suspect, a Mexican national who goes by numerous names including Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, has been deported from the United States five times and previously convicted of numerous felonies.Public Defender Matt Gonzalez called his only witness Jim Norris, a forensic science consultant and former director of the San Francisco Police Department's Forensic Services Division, to the stand.Gonzalez believes the gun Sanchez is accused of firing accidentally discharged in his hand.Norris' testimony supported Gonzalez's position. He said the weapon, a Sig Sauer P239 .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, has no safety switch and the weapon has a trigger that requires little force to pull, therefore supporting the defense position that it could have accidentally gone off.A police investigator has also testified that the bullet hit the ground and ricocheted just before fatally striking Steinle in the back.Outside the courtroom, Norris told reporters he does believe Sanchez unintentionally shot Steinle. "This is not the way to shoot somebody. I mean you can't ricochet bullets off of surfaces and try to hit somebody. You aim the gun at the person and shoot them," he said.However, the prosecution believes Sanchez was aiming his gun at Steinle when it went off. "We believe the charging decision is proper and the defendant has been charged with murder for that reason," San Francisco District Attorney's Office spokesperson Alex Bastian said.San Francisco police criminalist and ballistics expert Gerald Andrew Smith, who examined the gun, testified during the hearings that the trigger had to be pulled for the gun to go off, but admitted later under cross examination that it could misfire.San Francisco's chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Hunter, who took the stand on Wednesday, said the victim suffered an atypical, rectangular entrance wound, consistent with a ricocheted bullet.The judge continued Lopez-Sanchez' preliminary hearing until 9 a.m. on Sept. 3 to allow additional witnesses to take the stand.If Judge Conroy finds that there is probable cause to believe Lopez-Sanchez committed the crime of murder, the defendant will stand trial.
– A ballistics expert yesterday seemed to back up Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez's claim that he fatally shot Kate Steinle by accident at San Francisco's Pier 14 in broad daylight in July. During a preliminary hearing, the former chief of the San Francisco Police crime lab said the gun the undocumented Mexican immigrant claimed to have found on a bench "was pointed at the ground" when it went off, sending a bullet ricocheting off the pier walkway before striking Steinle, 32, in the back as she walked about 100 feet away, reports the San Jose Mercury News. "You couldn't do this on purpose," the ex-chief added out of court. He told a judge the weapon, a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol recovered from San Francisco Bay, has no safety switch and needs little force on the trigger to fire, reports ABC7. Prosecutors agree the bullet ricocheted but say the shot was intentional and imply Lopez-Sanchez was perhaps just "a lousy shot." The prosecution's firearms expert says Lopez-Sanchez could have still been aiming at Steinle at the time. San Francisco's chief medical examiner on Wednesday said the bullet was traveling at an upward angle when it lodged in Steinle's abdomen, reports ABC7. "It is an atypical entrance wound, which to me has a lot of significance," he said. "This is anything but a classic entrance wound." Tourist photos show Lopez-Sanchez was at the waterfront at the time of the shooting. He later confessed to firing the gun. Judge Brendan Conroy will ultimately decide whether he should face a murder trial; the preliminary hearing will continue Sept. 3.