This is too, too much. . . but interesting reading.
enjoy i guess.

> 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, "Someone 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,
> 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 not loaded.
>
> 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,
> assuming 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.
>
> A true story from Associated Press, (Reported by
> Kurt Westervelt)
>
>
>
>



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