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Origination: Don't Blink Mailing List
Originator: Cheryl Norman (cheryl@bluefish.fsr.com)
Original Subject: Not soap related but interesting Most Bizarre Suicide
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 12:30:10 -0700 (PDT)
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At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in
San Diego with the legal complications of a bizzare death. Here is the
story:
\"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he
left a note indicating his dispondency). As he fell past the ninth floor,
his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed
him instantly. Neither the shooter not the decedent was aware that a safety
net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window
washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide
anyway because of this.
\"Ordinarily,\" Dr Mills continued, \"a person who sets out to commit suicide
ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he
intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below
probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.
But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused
the medical examiner to feel that he had 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 and he was threatening her with
the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he
completely missed the wife and the pellets went through the window striking
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 this charge, the
old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun
was loaded. 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 Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun
had been accidently loaded.
\"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's
son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal
incident. It transpired that the old lady 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.\"
There was an exquisite twist. \"Further investigation revealed that the son,
Ronald Opus, 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 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast
through a ninth story window.
\"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.\"
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