"Logic is a frightening thing"

[The NZA]

Don't know how true it is, but interestin anyway.

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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 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, 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.

 

The room on the ninth floor 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 couples son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to

the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut

off her sons 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 mothers 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.

 

(A true story from Associated Press, reported by Kurt

Westervelt)

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[JunkerSeed]

Yeah, I heard about that, they tell you that story in the intro to the movie Magnolia.  Could be true, certainly a cool story.

[SuperEeyore]

damn.. talk about revenge... no thtas is called KARMA!!  :wary: