WE HAVE A DARWIN AWARD WINNER!
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science,
AAFS president Dr.Don Harper Mills astounded his audience
with the 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 that 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 at 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, "A person 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." The fact that Mr.Opus was shot in
the course of what would have been an unsuccessful
suicide attempt led the medical examiner to feel that he
had a 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 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. They both said they thought the shotgun
was unloaded. 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 Mr.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
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. Therefore the case becomes
one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Mr.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. Very tidy of him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A true story from Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt.
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science,
AAFS president Dr.Don Harper Mills astounded his audience
with the 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 that 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 at 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, "A person 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." The fact that Mr.Opus was shot in
the course of what would have been an unsuccessful
suicide attempt led the medical examiner to feel that he
had a 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 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. They both said they thought the shotgun
was unloaded. 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 Mr.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
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. Therefore the case becomes
one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Mr.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. Very tidy of him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A true story from Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt.
![[?|]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_banghead.gif "Bang Head [?|]"){kind=icon}
![[rofl]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_rofl.gif "ROFL [rofl]"){kind=icon}
some people.... LOL