City, I did that image only to illustrate what the ME's report says. I'm not a forensics expert but have seen intermediate ranges defined from 3" to 30" and practically all points in between. Pick your distance and I'm pretty sure there's a distance than can be linked to support it. The various categories of shot distance I have seen include contact, near contact, intermediate, and distant categories, no matter the meted definition for intermediate.
Although I have little knowledge about the various categorzation of shot distances, I have more than a little experience in understanding angles and angular impact on a given plane.
A human arm holding a gun only has three, limited, pivot or rotator points from the shoulder to the gun. With a prone shooter underneath the victim, I can see no way the projectile path determined by the ME could occur with ANY contortion of these three points considering the additional qualifier of an "intermediate" range by any standard's meted dimension, whether the angular plane of the victim was vertical all the way down to, and including, nose to nose.
