amazing story

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

The following story, published on the Sri Jagannath Vedic Center astrology news

letter, (www.sjvc.com), is astonishing. For those who may have missed it here it

is...

 

 

 

 

 

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 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. "That Mr. Opus was

shot on the way

to a 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. An

elderly man and

his wife occupied the room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated.

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, if 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 storey 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)g.

 

 

 

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