Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Murder - Suicide



 

Do you like to read a good murder mystery?  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.


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, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself.  So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.


 


A true story from Associated Press.


Thanks Hal

13 comments:

  1. Dad sounds like he cheated his way into the Presidency.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Groundhog Day is one of my favs.

    Now was Ronald also his own Grandma ? I've heard this happens to some people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's a song "I'm my own grandpa"

      https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i%27m+my+own+grandpa

      Delete
    2. Kid, damn there's another number 1 hit I missed.

      Delete
  3. So basically the whole family suffered from mental disease. Sounds about fitting.

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    Replies
    1. rayvet, sounds like a story made for DC as edutcher said.

      Delete
  4. All y'all are wrong. This is obviously an example of gun violence and thus it's the fault of the gun and ammo manufacturers. Someone should sue!!!!

    (SARCASM!!!)

    Or not. Bet the death is listed as a gun violence stat somewhere. Betcha.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This sounds very similar to the opening of Magnolia...

    ReplyDelete

Put it here ... I can't wait to read it. I have the Captcha turned OFF but blogger insists it be there. You should be able to bypass it.

** Anonymous, please use a name at the end of your comment. You're all starting to look alike.

*** Moderation has been added due to Spam and a Commenter a little too caustic. I welcome comments, but talk of killing and racist (or even close to racist) are not welcome.