Dear Netters,
The veracity of this story is, IMHO, open to question, as it is the plot
of a recent episode of my favorite television show, "Homicide" from a few
weeks back.
Mon, 9 Feb 1998, doug russell wrote:
=%O
=%OTry this true lagal story on for size ... it's long but worth it.
=%O
=%ODr. Doug
=%O
=%O<Old Stuff>
=%OKnowing this is way off topic, I will consider myself flamed in advance.
=%OWould appreciate the assistance of those with a more scientific mind than
=%Omy own:
=%O
=%OAm working on a project for school (an Evidence course). Scenario:
=%O
=%O<Major Snip of remaining old stuff>
=%O
=%O<New Stuff>
=%O
=%OAt the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
=%OForensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience
=%Oin San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is
=%Othe story:
=%O
=%O"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus
=%Oand concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent
=%Ohad jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide
=%O(he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth
=%Ofloor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which
=%Okilled him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that
=%Oa safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some
=%Owindow washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his
=%Osuicide anyway because of this.
=%O
=%O"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit
=%Osuicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what
=%Ohe intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories
=%Obelow probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to
=%Ohomicide." But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been
=%Osuccessful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide
=%Oon his hands.
=%O
=%OThe room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was
=%Ooccupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was
=%Othreatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled
=%Othe trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through
=%Othe window striking Opus.
=%O
=%OWhen one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt,
=%Oone is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this
=%Ocharge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew
=%Othat the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing
=%Ohabit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no
=%Ointention to murder her. Therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be
=%Oan accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
=%O
=%OThe continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old
=%Ocouple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the
=%Ofatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's
=%Ofinancial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to
=%Ouse the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that
=%Ohis father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder
=%Oon the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
=%O
=%OThere was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the
=%Oson [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his
=%Oattempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the
=%Oten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through
=%Oa ninth-story window.
=%O
=%OThe medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
=%O
"Never ascribe to Malice that which can be explained by Ignorance"
John J. Peloquin
Molecular Biology &
Biochemistry
3205 BioSciences II
UC IRVINE
Irvine, CA 92697-3900
jpeloqui@uci.edu
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