Klarinet Archive - Posting 000382.txt from 1996/12

From: Steve Prescott <mipresc@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Opus
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 10:53:29 -0500

I would like to put this Opus discussion to rest (pun intended as you will
see) once and for all with this story that came from another list:

1994's MOST BIZARRE SUICIDE

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association
for Forensic Science, AAFS president Don Harper Mills astounded his
audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre
death.

Here is the story:

On 23 March 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 indicating his despondency). As he
fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun
blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the
shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected
at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that
Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because
of this.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit
suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be
what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death
nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of
death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal
intent would not have been successful caused 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 and he was threatening her with
the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he
completely missed his wife and pellets went through the window
striking 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 this charge, the old man and his wife were both
adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. 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 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 approximately six weeks prior to the
fatal incident. 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.

There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that
the son, one Ronald Opus, 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 23, only to be
killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

(This is not a true story but it is very interesting)

Therefore, this discourse has ended as, Opus being dead and all, there is
now nothing more to discuss.

Steve

Steve Prescott
Instrument Rep.Tech./ Clarinetist
Indiana State University
mipresc@-----.edu