[Sciler]

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, "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.

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 unloaded. 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, if
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.

And you thought you had a weird family?

[Strider_Gren]

0_o... Hmmm... Interesting..Assisted suicide.

[X-thirteen]

haha, that was funny.

[ABDUR101]

...that gets a big ol WTF from me o_O;

He got what he deserved though, he had it fixed so his father killed his mom "by accident"..premeditated.

Although I'd of rather him slam against the concrete and still have lived...but then his mom would have possibly been killed.

So...

[SnAPPUrU-nyan-ko]

I don't believe it, it was a faked death!

[Kent]

Hmm... This is an ... interesting conclusion.

The son loaded the shotgun to get the father to accidently shoot the mother, but the father missed (not knowing it was loaded) and hit the son, who was in the process of attempting (and failing) suicide.

There are factors pointing to both homicide and assisted suicide.

I'd say assisted suicide.

And yes, this gets a big ol WTF from me too.

[Dangerous55]

I dont think anything should happen from it, the old people, are, well old. And the son is already dead.

[ABDUR101]

The son loaded the damn gun so when his father went to threaten his mother with it, he'd accidently kill her with it.

His plan merely back fired on his idiotic ass and he was on the receiving end of the buckshot.

The father never had it loaded, the son had this all premeditated so his father would goto jail because he was being a whiny bitch.

He could'nt take the pressure and tried to kill himself, but on the way, his father accidently killed him with a gun that he loaded himself, for malicious intent.

GOOD! He got what he deserved. You can't really blame the father, because the father had no part in loading the gun. And abusing someone with an unloaded weapon(expecially when it's practically tradition, as mentioned in the first post) isn't exactly against the law unless the wife files a complaint to the police.

[Ness]

I heard about this on the news when I was little, but what tookyou so long to bring this up? Like the rest of them, it gets a big WTF from me.

[Sciler]

took me so long cause i just got it in an email and found it interesting?