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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 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. Mr. Opus
was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below at street
level, but his suicide attempt probably would not have been successful
because of the safety net. This 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 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.
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 both the loss of his financial support and 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.
"I made up the story in 1987 to present at the meeting, for entertainment and to illustrate how if you alter a few small facts you greatly alter the legal consequences."
