A FORENSIC DILEMMA,A MURDER MYSTERY

 

A FORENSIC DILEMMA, A MURDER MYSTERY - a very interesting  true story                            Yes! it's a true 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 9th 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 8th floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have bee 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 9th 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 also transpired that the old lady had cut off her son'sfinancial 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 9th story window.                           The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a  suicide.                         A true story from Associated  Press

 

 

 

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