Pihana called on Mero again. He "tried to convince me that the damage caused to the front plastic turret plate was a result of a round coming from inside the turret gunner's space," Mero told the NCIS agents. About six weeks later, at the request of NCIS, Mero printed his photos of the humvee. "I noticed that the damage to the turret had been altered," he told the agents. "When I viewed the humvee the first time, the damage to the turret was at an angle that the damage was caused from the outside of the humvee coming into the turret." The last time he saw the vehicle, "the damaged part of the turret had been altered so that the damage appeared to have been caused by something coming from inside the turret."
Pihana elected not to include Mero's statement in his final report, a decision the court called both "inappropriate" and possibly attributable to the fact it did not support his conclusion.