could be true?...

Draven GD · #1 (**permalink**) Apr 19, 05

Here's a strange but apparently true story. anyone else hear about this?
Submitted previosly by Brad Burns

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
decedent 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, but the
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, by Kurt Westervelt