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 Case:



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

hat 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.





A true story from Associated Press, Reported by Kurt Westervelt