[Mb-civic] Go figure ...

[Gerald Gerald]

BIZZARE STORY!!

Strange...this is one you gotta read bizzare twist of
fate Not even "Law and Order" would attempt to capture
this mess...This is an unbelievable twist of fate!!!

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 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, "Someone 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 not loaded.

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, assuming 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 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.

A true story from Associated Press, Reported by Kurt
Westervelt Mark C. Anderson Director, Materials
Handling Room 101A, Park Avenue Warehouse Bowling
Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio.