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Old 07-14-2003, 03:04 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Location: Australia
murder/suicide ? true story

Subject:murder/suicide?



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 the 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 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, but 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.

In the room on the ninth floor, where 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 and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a 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, if 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.

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger. 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.
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Old 07-14-2003, 05:34 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Location: Yonder
Wow. I don't know if it's a true story or not, but it's a GOOD story either way.

This story is depicted brilliantly at the very beginning of the movie <i>Magnolia</i>.
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Old 07-14-2003, 05:54 PM   #3 (permalink)
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That man deserves a Darwin Award
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Old 07-14-2003, 09:19 PM   #4 (permalink)
back from sabbatical
 
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Location: Mosptopia
not true, but still awesome
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Old 07-15-2003, 12:46 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Location: INCONUS
Well that was odd.
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Old 07-15-2003, 12:57 AM   #6 (permalink)
Fast'n'Bulbous
 
Location: Australia, Perth
very good story. All those coincidences make it less believable tho. Nevertheless still a very good and clever story/tale

Last edited by Sleepyjack; 07-15-2003 at 01:30 AM..
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Old 07-15-2003, 08:49 AM   #7 (permalink)
Sexy eh?
 
Location: Sweden
Really odd story. But he had it comming!
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Old 07-15-2003, 09:51 AM   #8 (permalink)
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Location: Ireland
Quote:
Originally posted by mpedrummer2
That man deserves a Darwin Award
He did...an urban legend Darwin Award.

Story is untrue I'm afraid. But still worth a laugh!
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Old 07-15-2003, 03:25 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Location: SW NEW HAMPSHIRE
Bizzarre! I love it.Keep em coming.
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Old 07-16-2003, 12:20 AM   #10 (permalink)
Upright
 
that happened to me last week.

Coincidence? I think not.
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Old 07-16-2003, 12:49 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Location: Tri-state.
This has been around since the early days of AOL (and probably earlier, but I was brought into the Internet by AOL 1.3 or so)

Great story, who cares if it's true? hehe
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Old 07-16-2003, 01:02 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Location: chocolate city
Complecated, but excellent
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Old 07-17-2003, 11:24 AM   #13 (permalink)
absolute relativist
 
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Location: D.C.
i knew a guy who had that happen to his sister when she was in an elevator in Las Vegas
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