Bizzare But True Story

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President,Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications ofa bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of RonaldOpus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Thedecedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commitsuicide. He left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As hefell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passingthrough a window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net hadbeen installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some buildingworkers that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicidethe way he had planned. Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, "a person whosets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though themechanism might not be what he intended" is still defined as committingsuicide. That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine storiesbelow at street level, but that his suicide attempt probably would not havebeen successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner tofeel that he had a homicide on his hands.

The room on the ninth floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated wasoccupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing a vigorously andhe was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when hepulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets wentthrough the door striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, butkills 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 bothadamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old mansaid it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloadedshotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr.Opus appeared to be an accident, that is, the gun had been accidentallyloaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the oldcouple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatalaccident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financialsupport and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgunthreateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father wouldshoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the sonfor the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the bizarre twist. Further investigation revealed thatthe son was in fact - Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondentover the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This ledhim to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed bya 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)