Thinking about the bullet casing count on the roof:
- If there was a conspiracy as we suspect, namely, that a real sniper shot probably the first three bullets, and Crooks shot 5, or so, it would have probably been kinda risky for the conspirators to place additional (3?) shells on the roof AFTER Crooks was shot since there was the real risk that local police/people would get up the roof before the conspirator, who would need to place the additional shells on the crime scene BEFORE anyone else comes up. Therefore, I can think of two ways the conspirators could have managed that part of the cover-up: One; 3 shells were placed on the roof at the right spot before Crooks went up, and second; maybe Crooks was told to place three shells around him as soon as he found the spot where he was supposed to shoot BEFORE he starts to shoot himself. And then he shot, and the conspirators made sure that he has only 5 (or so) bullets in his gun AND he was told to shoot all bullets.
The first option sounds like the least risky one, and maybe the possible one. But both options sound risky, and especially the second one, because you rely on the patsy to do as he was told several times and on chance (that someone wouldn't shoot him dead before the five shots were fired for example, or how much Crooks will be able to shoot). And both options also have the problem that one needs to assume that it was decided beforehand that the real sniper shoots EXACTLY 3 bullets!
- Given the above, that Crooks was the only shooter enters the picture again, as a possibility. LOL!
At this point, the last option still seems most likely to me. The best evidence against it is the audio from that one video, but I'm not yet convinced that one is an open and shut case.
One thing that may be worth considering: so far we don't have any witnesses from close to Crooks's location expressing any doubt that he fired all eight shots. Maybe we'll eventually get someone coming forward to say so, but so far no one has said something like, "some shots sounded like they came from inside the building," or from farther away, etc. If a second shooter were placed on the building behind him, maybe they wouldn't have been able to tell the difference in the heat of the moment, but on the videos you can hear that they're pretty sure about seeing him actually firing the rifle. And if someone were firing from within the building below him, those shots would definitely sound different compared to those fired from the roof.
If it comes out that there's any possibility that the shell casings were planted, my next guess would be that all 8 shots were fired by a different shooter and that Crooks didn't shoot any.
I agree. If we apply occam's razor just to the bullet casing problem mentioned above, what would you conclude? Occam's razor states: "If you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one." So, we compare:
1: Additional bullet casing placement on the roof at any point before or after Crooks death, or 2: No additional bullet casing placement on the roof at any point before or after Crooks death. I would certainly say that option 2 is by far the more simple one.
And when we take all the other speculations about a second shooter near Crooks angle and compare it to Crooks having shot all bullets, we come to the same conclusion: Crooks having fired all bullets seems far simpler. But then again, if there was a second shooter, as we assume it, it naturally would confuse the issue in many respects, exactly as we see here.