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Suicide or murder???

  • 02-12-1999 2:47pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,274 ✭✭✭


    At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, the
    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. The deceased

    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 deceased 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, but that his suicide attempt 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
    from
    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 Mr 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.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,414 ✭✭✭✭Trojan


    rotflmao smile.gif
    almost deserves a darwin (does it qualify?) smile.gif


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 398 ✭✭Mythago


    Wasn't that on some poxy australian cop drama a while ago?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,099 ✭✭✭✭WhiteWashMan



    no that is actually in the darwin awards.
    in fact, i think it may have been a winner.
    tis completely true and i think its such a classic case of unfortunate coinceidence
    just bloody brilliant i reckon smile.gif


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