Subject: 1994's Most Bizarre Suicide


>At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the american Association for
>Forensic Science, AAPS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in
>San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death.  Here is the
>story.
>
>"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
>concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head.  The decedent had
>jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (
>he had left a note indicating his despondency).  As he fell past the ninth
>floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which
>killed him instantly.  Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that
>a safety net had been erected at the eight floor level to protect some
>window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his
>suicide anyway because of this."
>
>"Ordinarily," Dr Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide
>ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he
>intended.  That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories
>below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suucide to
>homicide.  But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been
>successfull caused the medical examiner to feel that he had 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 and he was
>threatening her with the shotgun.  He was so upset that, when the pulled
>the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the
>windown striking Opus.
>
>"When one intnends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt,
>one is guilty of the murder of subject B.  When confronted with this
>charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that
>the shotgun was loaded.  The old man said it was his long-standing habit to
>threaten his wife the unloaded shotgun.  He had no intention to murder her
>- therefore, the killing of 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 approximately six weeks prior to the fatal
>incident.  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.
>
>There was an exquisite twist.  "Further investigation revealed that the son
>(Ronald Opus) 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 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast
>through a ninth story window.
>
>"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

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kevin@media.mit.edu        http://kevin.www.media.mit.edu/people/kevin/