[answerguy]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/03/old.murder.mystery/

That is, what is new in BF that helped solve this crime?

"Freiburger was carrying a loaded .32-caliber revolver when he was taken in to custody. The gun was the same type used to kill Orner, and detectives were able to prove that Freiburger bought the gun in a Columbia pawn shop the day before the slaying.

Ballistics tests were inconclusive, however, and Freiburger was released from custody without being charged. The Orner case went "cold," in police parlance, meaning there were no new leads or evidence. Eventually, the gun, the crime scene photographs and the rest of the evidence were boxed up -- and stayed boxed up for almost four decades. "

How come he never got his gun back? I'd say that is were Freiburger went wrong. (other than murdering the guy)

[Standing Wolf]

How come he never got his gun back?

I'm sure it was kept as evidence.

[hammer4nc]

what is new in BF that helped solve this crime?

I'm left with the same question, after reading the article. :confused:
They certainly had good microscopes 40 years ago.

[SDC]

It's not that any of the techniques are that new, it's that it's so much faster because it's now mainly automated; before, when an examiner wanted to compare two bullets or cases, he'd have to mount each sample under a comparison microscope and then thoroughly compare the samples to each other (each land and groove on one bullet to each land and groove on the other). Whether those bullets matched each other or not, the process would take anywhere from 3 to 4 hours, and more often than not, that work would be wasted because they turned out NOT to be a match. With IBIS/NIBIN/whatever else you want to call it, you simply enter each sample as a separate case, and the machine itself acts like a giant filter, that ranks every possible match in its database according to how close it is to your questioned sample. The operator can quickly screen "non-matches" out of the stream, but forward the "likely matches" to a firearms and tool marks examiner, who can confirm (or not) the match.

[answerguy]

Yeah, but the police had the murder weapon and the bullet. What was lacking in 1950's technology that is available now that could get this solved?

[SDC]

Mainly, the ability to LINK those shootings to one another; under the older system, everytime you get another unsolved shooting, you'd have to compare that evidence against EVERY OTHER case involving a firearm with those class characteristics (for example, .38/.357 bullet, 5 left rifling, which describes almost every .38/.357 S&W ever made). Since the original investigator, examiner, and suspect could all be long dead by the time you ended up running into an actual match, all that the IBIS system does is that it puts the information into a database that can be checked automatically by a computer, instead of taking up man-hours on comparisons that aren't going to go anywhere to begin with.
In this specific example, you're right, they SHOULD have been able to do the match 40 years ago, having both the firearm and the crime bullet, but someone messed up back then, and it wasn't until those exhibits were run through IBIS and it said "Hey, possible match" that they took another look at it. If this lab was like most labs in the '50s, they were probably still catching test bullets with rolled up cotton in a shoot box, and even that can leave its own markings on bullets.