Subject: Interesting Murder Story
>>Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 10:56:53 +0530
>>
>>At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS
>>president Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal
>>complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:
>>On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald
>>Opus
>>and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr.
>>Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to
>>commit suicide. He left a note to that effect indicating his
>>despondency.
>>As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun
>>blast passing through a window which killed him instantly. Neither
>>the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been
>>installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some
>>building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to
>>complete his suicide the way he had planned.
>>"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "A person who sets out to commit
>>suicide and ultimately succeeds even though the mechanism might not
>>be what he intended" is still defined as committing suicide. That
>>Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below at
>>street level probably would not have been successful because of the
>>safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a
>>homicide on his hands.
>>The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was
>>occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing
>>vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so
>>upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife
>>and the pellets went through the window striking Mister Opus. When
>>one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one
>>is guilty of the murder of subject B.
>>When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were
>>both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded.
>>The old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife
>>with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.
>>Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that
is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
>>The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old
>>couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal
>>accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's
>>financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to
>>use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation
>>that his father would shoot his mother.
>>The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the
>>death of Ronald Opus.
>>Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that
>>the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly
>>despondent
>> over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This
>>led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be
>>killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
>>The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed
the case as a suicide. Very tidy of him.
>>(A true story from Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt)
>>
>>