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 that 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 decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at 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.
The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguring 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 intended to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt one is guility of the murder of subject B.
When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded.
The old man said it was his longstanding 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, the gun had been accidently 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 threatingly, loaded the shotgun 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.
Now comes the twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondant over the failure to engineer his mother's murder. And the fact his financial status was declining. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by the shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examminer closed the case as a suicide.
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I'm surprised we haven't seen that case on CSI. Come to think of it, though, Grissom's team did handle a case once where the decedent was shot up with rattlesnake venom; hit in the head with a crowbar; fed peanut butter in a drink (he was allergic to peanuts); shot in the trachea with a crossbow bolt; and sat down in a chair by a swimming pool - which broke under him and propelled him into the water, where he drowned.
Although Brass, Grissom & Co. arrested something like six people for conspiracy to commit murder, assault and attempted murder in this case, Doc Robbins finally ruled it an accidental death, since what really killed him was a broken chair and the swimming pool. It is definitely one of the odder, and most enjoyable, episodes of CSI yet filmed.
I'm surprised we haven't seen that case on CSI. Come to think of it, though, Grissom's team did handle a case once where the decedent was shot up with rattlesnake venom; hit in the head with a crowbar; fed peanut butter in a drink (he was allergic to peanuts); shot in the trachea with a crossbow bolt; and sat down in a chair by a swimming pool - which broke under him and propelled him into the water, where he drowned.
Although Brass, Grissom & Co. arrested something like six people for conspiracy to commit murder, assault and attempted murder in this case, Doc Robbins finally ruled it an accidental death, since what really killed him was a broken chair and the swimming pool. It is definitely one of the odder, and most enjoyable, episodes of CSI yet filmed.
LOL I've seen that one...the one at the "chicken ranch" right?
LOL as for the OP...that is a humdinger...sounds true, it's too crazy to be made up!
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Uh, so it's OK to just let the old guy continue to constantly threaten his wife with a shotgun? Maybe they should, you know, do something about that...
there is no way i'm going to believe that story. a guy discharges a shotgun out the window and hits a jumper is bad enough but to hit his son, who loaded it? nope. no way. not gonna buy it.
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