Subject: Interesting Murder Story
>>Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 10:56:53 +0530
>>
>>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 nine stories below at
>>street level 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 Mister 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)
>>
>>