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It is as strange as you like anyhoo !!
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>1994 Bizarre Suicide
>
>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 of 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 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 the pellets went through the a 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 [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."
>
>If true, the jumper is guilty of attempted murder but
>in the process he accidentally got himself killed.
>It was definitely not death by suicide! Since he did
>not die by suicide, even though it started out that
>way. I think the medical examiner was stumped. I consider
>it accidental death with extenuating circumstances.
>
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