GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- It took 5.5 pounds of effort to end James Jones' life.

That's less energy than it takes to pour a gallon of milk. Or to open a car door.

But to squeeze the trigger on a .40 caliber Glock 27 subcompact semi-automatic pistol -- to create enough spring-loaded tension on the firing pin to strike a Smith & Wesson cartridge and send a bullet speeding through the barrel to the back of Jones' skull -- about 5.5 pounds will do it.

By the time police found the body, the gun was long gone.

When Jones' family members buried him at RiverRest Cemetery in Flint Township, the gun that killed him was nowhere to be found. Even when Shaun Ferguson was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, there was no gun.

The victim died, the suspect was arrested, but the gun lived on -- leaving only little reminders behind.

The fragments of the bullet stuck in Jones' brain. The spent cartridge casing on the living room floor.

The rest of the weapon disappeared, back to the secret economy from which it came.

Areas like Flint and Mt. Morris Township, where Jones was killed, are full of guns like this. They are bought and sold on the black market, changing hands illegally and, sometimes, killing.

The gun that killed Jones had been reported stolen. Police were looking for it and, eventually, they found it. But for Jones, it was too late.

Quiet beginnings

Croftshire Court is a quiet cul-de-sac in Grand Blanc, a dead end in a tangle of suburban streets flanked by golf courses and cornfields. Children ride bikes here on warm afternoons. Dads push lawnmowers after work.

Two brick columns mark the driveway to 13009 Croftshire. It's a large, ranch style home with green shutters and an attached, three-car garage. One of those garage doors -- police were told on June 26,2007 -- was damaged, perhaps in a break-in.

Marsha Nucian told police she got back from a three-day getaway with her husband and noticed the damaged garage door.

Then, she saw a dresser drawer was open.

And, a wooden shoebox had been moved.

"Marsha said the shoebox was in the same closet as the gun case," read the police report from the incident, obtained by MLive-Flint Journal under the Freedom of Information Act.

Inside the gun case, Nucian noticed only two guns -- a .22 caliber Ruger and a .22 caliber Smith & Wesson -- where there were normally four.

Reported stolen were only two items: A .45 caliber Glock handgun, serial number CFY445US.

The other: A .40 caliber Glock 27 subcompact, serial number CNF191US, the gun that would -- a year and a half later -- kill Jones.

The plastic gun case and the shoebox were dusted for fingerprints but none were detected.

Police chased down several tips in the case. Perhaps, the couple wondered, some of their kids' friends who were over had something to do with it. A few people were questioned, including a teenager who was caught using the family's Blockbuster Video card, but no arrests were made.

The case was going nowhere. It seemed unlikely police would recover the guns.

Nucian and her husband filed for divorce in early 2011 and owned the house on Croftshire until, later in the year, it was foreclosed on, according to court and property records.

Today, the house is for sale and one of few empty homes in the neighborhood.

Nucian's husband could not be reached for comment. According to police reports, he told police both stolen guns were registered to him and were purchased in Southfield.

Nucian said she believes he purchased the Glock 27 from a gun store in the Detroit area about 10 years before it was stolen.

Weeks turned into years, and the couple assumed they'd never hear from police about the missing guns again. Then, in 2009, Nucian said, the phone rang.

"They called us and said one of the guns might have been used in a murder."

America's gun

That gun's story begins 4,500 miles away from Genesee County, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Just outside the Austrian capitol of Vienna, near the Slovakia border, is a small village of less than 10,000 people called Deutsch-Wagram. Here is where, in the early 1980s, curtain rod manufacturer Gaston Glock started making handguns for the Austrian army using composite plastic instead of steel and stripping away the external safety mechanism.

Here is also where all Glocks sold in the United States, including the one used to kill Jones, are manufactured.

The Glock first arrived in America in 1986, in the heat of the crime and crack cocaine epidemic. In less than 30 years, it has become America's most popular handgun, a staple for both law enforcement and criminals, blockbuster movies and rap stars.

In a way, America was introduced to the gun by Hollywood. In the 1990 action movie "Die Hard 2," the character played by Bruce Willis delivers this famous line: "That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. Doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines. And it costs more than you make in a month."

The Glock's popularity, its sex appeal, was sealed. It would become for the modern culture what the Colt Revolver was to the Wild West. It didn't matter then that nearly every fact in that "Die Hard" line was inaccurate.

"Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac," rapped Tupac Shakur in the chorus of his 1996 song "Hit 'Em Up."

That same year, Shakur was shot and killed with a Glock.

In his 2012 book "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun," author Paul M. Barrett writes that Glock is "the Google of modern civilian handguns: the pioneer brand that defines its product category."

So it's no surprise that one could be found locked away in a peaceful suburban closet. It's also no surprise that a killer would use one.

The Glock used to kill Jones, the Glock 27 subcompact, is one of eight .40 caliber options in the Glock product line. It sells retail for about $600. The standard magazine holds nine rounds. Loaded, the weapon weights 27 ounces, or about 1.7 pounds.

"Small, light, accurate, powerful: all accurately describe the GLOCK 27," reads the description on Glock's website. "With its comfortable dimensions and the proven advantages of the GLOCK pistol family, the G27 is popular with police, both on and off duty. "

Anatomy of a killing

How exactly White's Glock 27 wound up 18 miles away, at 6209 Titan Dr. in Mt. Morris Township, is a mystery to law enforcement, to family members, to perhaps anyone who isn't dead or in prison.

All investigators and family members know for sure is that Jones had possession of the gun and that, somewhere along the line, it had been outfitted with a laser sight.

And that, eventually, it would kill him.

Jones was born at Hurley Hospital in 1985 and grew up in the home on Titan Drive. He was the youngest of the family, coming after his three older sisters. Aside from a brief stint staying with his father in Tennessee, Jones called Beecher home his entire life, attending school there and playing little league baseball and football.

"James was someone who hardly ever went out of Beecher," said his mother, Lois White.

When his sisters moved out and his mother moved in with her new husband in Flint Township, Jones stayed on Titan Drive, keeping watch over the family home.

White described her son as an "easy-going" person whose life bounced between an honest path and a lifestyle that was rougher around the edges.

He worked at a pickle factory in Imlay City and talked of moving south for better work. He fathered a child and, in 2008, was baptized. Then there was the part of him that was slipping, his mother says. He'd been laid off from the pickle factory, began missing child support payments and started smoking marijuana.

Those choices caught up with him on Jan. 27, 2009, a Tuesday. Sheriff's deputies arrived at Jones' door that morning and booked him in the Genesee County jail for missing child support payments.

White initially wasn't going to bail her son out. He deserved this, she thought; he should be punished for it.

But she couldn't help herself. She bailed him out.

"I started getting sad about him," she said.

Earlier that month, he had talked about driving down to Tennessee to look for work. But the Chevrolet Trailblazer he drove was still in White's name, and she told him not to go. Looking back on it all, she says, it's like something was trying to keep her son from crossing paths with a killer that night.

"I think God was trying to get him out of there," White said.

She wishes she'd let her son stay in jail. Instead, two days later, on Jan. 29, White posted $1,000 to bail her son out and take him home. They both went back to the house on Titan Drive.

White didn't know these would be the last moments with her son. He took a shower, changed into blue jeans and a yellow University of Michigan T-shirt. He came over and gave her a hug.

They watched television. At 7:30 p.m., when "Judge Judy" was over, she went home. Jones was already on the phone with friends, making plans for the evening.

She didn't notice the gun in the house. She didn't learn until after he was already dead that her son had a stolen and loaded Glock 27 subcompact with a laser sight.

Several hours later, around 1 a.m., Mt. Morris Township Police Officer Chris Watts was on patrol on Titan Drive when he saw a black Trailblazer speed out of a driveway and hit a curb, tearing off into the night, according to police and court records.

Watts followed the vehicle north on Neff Road, past Beecher High School, to Katy Drive, where the driver lost control and went off the road into a snow bank. He saw a man exit and run off.

This is an example of markings on the casings used in IBIS, Integrated Ballistics Identification System, which analysts use to compare casings with thousands of others across the nation. In Michigan alone, the database contains more than 45,000 casings. Jake May | MLive.com

Watts saw a PlayStation 3 and some other things in the Trailblazer and figured the man was fleeing a breaking and entering. He called for backup.

Officer Jeff Iski and his K-9 partner, Cash, arrived and began to track the suspect. With the police dog chasing the suspect, Watts returned to the house.

The door was opened and he and another officer went inside. There they found Jones, lying on the couch, his feet up on one armrest, no shoes on, a bullet in his head, blood splattered onto his yellow shirt.

Forensics investigators arrived on the scene. The only sign of the murder weapon was a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson cartridge. Police recovered cell phone photographs of the gun in the house before the crime. People who knew Jones also testified in court that they knew Jones had the gun.

At 4:15 a.m., less than nine hours after she last saw her son, Lois White's doorbell rang.

"I said, 'What's wrong officer?'"

She'll never forget the next three words. Words that told her something was terribly wrong.

"Sit down, m'am."

Police eventually caught and arrested their suspect, Shaun Ferguson, more than a week later.

The case went to trial and, in November 2011, Ferguson was sentenced to 45-70 years in prison for second-degree murder, 5-15 years for felon in possession of firearm and 10 years for a felony firearm conviction. Ferguson had previously been convicted of a felony assault charge in 2003 and an added charge for carrying a firearm while committing a felony.

Ferguson's attorney, Frank J. Manley, said his client maintains his innocence. Investigators saw Ferguson fleeing the scene, but never proved he pulled the trigger, Manley said. The case is currently being appealed.

White believes Ferguson killed her son. The two men knew each other growing up, and she figures Ferguson was robbing Jones when he got hold of her son's gun and, for some reason, shot him, like the prosecution claimed.

Authorities didn't have much hope of finding the gun. Often in murders like this, the firearm is never recovered.

In this case, it was. Eventually.

A gun's fingerprint

The crime lab in Bridgeport Township is a nondescript building outside of Saginaw. It's one of seven MSP crime labs across the state. And one of only four hooked up to the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, a database of criminal firearms.

Anytime a gun or bullet cartridge casing is recovered from a crime scene in Genesee County, it's taken to the Bridgeport lab.

Investigators deliver them there by hand. They walk them into the front door and Lt. Ron Crichton or another analyst comes to retrieve them. The transaction is recorded and the evidence goes into a locker, awaiting its turn under the microscope. The lab receives about 1,400 pieces of evidence per year for firearms alone. These are mostly guns, bullets and cartridge casings.

The cartridge casing from the Jones' homicide was brought here. It was taken to the IBIS computer in the back room, past the shelves of evidence, guns and ammo, boxed up and stacked in a closet. The cartridge was put into a specialized camera that photographs it and logs into the database any identifying data: the brand, the caliber, the shape of the mark left from the firing pin.

Months later, another piece of evidence, from a different case entirely, came through the doors.

The FBI had been investigating a street gang in Flint called the Dayton Mafia. An FBI informant working on the case purchased a firearm from one of the gang members, according to court records.

How the gun got from Jones' murder to the Dayton Mafia remains unknown -- and something Ferguson's attorney said raises questions about whether his client killed Jones. Manley has requested to question the informant who bought the gun at the trial.

"It violates the fundamental fairness if the guy who has the actual murder weapon isn't allowed to be questioned at Ferguson's trial," Manley said.

"It's our position he was denied a fair trial," he added.

The FBI declined to comment.

Like any gun that comes off the street, the FBI's gun was taken up to the crime lab. To match a cartridge with a gun, the gun needs to be fired again to generate a new cartridge. Analysts take the firearm to a back room and load it with generic brand ammunition. At least two shots are fired into a water tank.

Then the new cartridge markings are entered into IBIS, which hunts for possible matches. Just in the statewide records alone are about 45,000 cartridges to search through. If investigators have a tip that they might need to look through evidence from another state, they can tap into the national database.

The .40 caliber Glock 27 subcompact semi-automatic pistol remains in the Mt. Morris Township evidence locker while the alleged shooter, Shaun Ferguson, maintains his innocence. Ferguson's attorney is appealing the case. Once all possible appeals are exhausted, the firearm will be taken to another Michigan State Police facility, where it will be destroyed in an incinerator in Lansing. Jake May | MLive.com

It isn't as simple as it looks on the movies, Crichton said. The database might deliver 50 or more potential matches. Examiners then compare them side-by-side on a specialized forensic microscope.

Still, matching a cartridge is easier than matching a bullet, Crichton said. With a bullet, flying through the air at hundreds of miles per hour before colliding to a stop can generate a lot of variables.

Analysts look for any imperfections in the cartridge, slight variations in the mark left from the firing pin and from the part of the gun the cartridge rests against, called the breechface. The manufacturing process leaves microscopic imperfections on these parts of the gun, tiny dents and bumps that are transferred onto the cartridge casing.

It's like a gun's fingerprint, Crichton said.

Death of a gun

On Nov. 30, 2009, Detective Sgt. Ryan Larrison was working in the crime lab and matched the FBI's gun to a cartridge in IBIS, according to court records.

The gun was fired before. It was the Glock 27 used to kill James Jones.

It's not unusual for guns to change hands rapidly "in the criminal world," according to court testimony from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Alan Jakubowski.

Today, the gun and cartridge sit in an evidence locker in Mt. Morris Township. One day, when lawyers have exhausted all the possible appeals in all the related criminal cases, the gun will move again, for one last time.

It will go to another MSP facility, where all guns recovered in murders in Michigan go. It will be tossed into an incinerator and destroyed.

It's the last stop for a gun used to kill, a clean and absolute ending to a journey punctuated by mystery and uncertainty.

Never again will it protect anyone's home, be stolen or sold on the street, be inspected under florescent lights by police scientists.

Never firing again, never killing again.

Blake Thorne is a reporter for MLive-The Flint Journal. Contact him at bthorne1@mlive.com or 810-347-8194. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.