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. The
decedent 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 decedent was aware that a safety net had
been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building
workers 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. That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories
below at street level, but that his suicide attempt 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 from whence the shotgun blast emanated was
occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing a 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 door 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. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son
for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the bizarre 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)