Graphic Photo: Leaked images appear to show Micah Johnson's body after he was killed by police robot

Leaked images appearing to show the dead body of Dallas sniper Micah Johnson after he was blown up by a 'bomb robot' appear genuine, a former US Army explosives expert has told Daily Mail Online.

The Dallas Police Department has refused to say whether the gruesome photos anonymously posted online Sunday evening are genuine images of the slain cop killer.

But Bryan Woolston, a former senior explosive ordnance disposal technician with the US Army, said that the blast scene depicted in the photos and the state of the corpse were consistent with the remote controlled bomb tactic used to kill Johnson. 

Police chiefs used a Remotec robot with a claw and arm extension to detonate one pound of C4 plastic explosive close to Johnson, who was thought to have been crouched behind a wall for cover. 

The technology had been used previously by the US military to flush out IEDs during the Iraq conflict - but never by police to 'take out' an armed suspect in the heart of a bustling American metropolis.

Johnson does not appear to be missing any limbs or have any obvious blast wounds in the series of crime scene pictures posted anonymously to LiveLeak. 

However he would likely have been killed by 'catastrophic' internal injuries, according to Woolston, who said he saw no obvious reasons to believe the images were fake. 

'The most significant injuries would have resulted from the blast over pressure generated by the detonation,' Woolston explained to Daily Mail Online. 

'This would have created a blast wave of pressure far higher than normal atmospheric pressure, causing catastrophic injuries to the cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal organs and other soft tissue. These injuries alone could cause death. 

'Additional injuries would have resulted from the secondary fragmentation created by the blast. But unlike an explosive device such as a hand grenade, that is designed to fragment, bare explosives have no casing and therefore do not have a primary fragmentation danger.  

'There would be no shards of metal expelled from a block of C4 itself. The only fragments involved would be those introduced by the environment.

'Additional injuries may have been sustained resulting from the thermal properties of the blast, depending on the suspect's proximity.' 

Johnson, who lived 20 minutes away from Dallas in Mesquite, Texas, was a 25-year-old Army reservist who told police he was upset about the recent shootings of black suspects. 

He reportedly fired from an elevated position during a city center protest, slaying five officers 'ambush style' - hitting some in the back as they reeled in shock, looking for their attacker. 

Cops eventually cornered him at El Centro College at around 11pm and attempted to negotiate. 

Talks came to nothing as Johnson mocked and gloated about his killing spree so police chiefs decided not to risk any more lives trying to take him alive. 

'We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was,' City police Chief David Brown told reporters Friday.