Date:         Fri, 3 Nov 1995 11:53:44 +0000
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Brian Isherwood" <bci@roadrunner.circon.com>
Subject:      Friday story - Not VW

Due to all the recent concern about the amount of money people are 
spending on repairing their VW's I though a little light hearted 
story might make for an easier weekend for everyone.  Remember, it's 
not as bad as some people have it.... read on....

(There isn't much traffic today on the list, and it is Friday.  I 
suppose you could flame me for sending it to the mailing list but I 
think it's worth some recreational reading.... ;-)    )

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At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS president Don Harper Mills astunded 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 to the head.  The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten story budiling 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 eight fllor 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 a homicide on his hands.  The room on
the ninth fllor 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 pellets went through the 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,
one 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 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.

originially sent on 10/16/95 from beckett@mda.ca