Something unusual...

The Loony Bin ( loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk )
Fri, 26 Jul 1996 04:37:24 +0100


Hiya People...

Here's a particularly odd one from Alan...see what you think...

Wishes & Dreams...

- ANDREA
        xx

************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************
******************<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>*******************
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***                THE LOONY BIN                  ***
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******************Internet Goddess*******************
*********************ANDROMEDA***********************

  ------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------

1994's MOST BIZARRE SUICIDE

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS 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 to the head. The
decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to
commit suicide (he 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 eighth
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 suicide to
homicide.  But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been
successful 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 and he was
threatening her with the shotgun.  He was so upset that, when he pulled
the trigger, he completely missed his wife and pellets went through the
window striking 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 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 with 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, one 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.