Morbid but interesting

[Steve]

1994's Most Bizarre Suicide
Don Harper Mills

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

On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this...

Ordinarily a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands...

Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.


When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded...

But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus...

Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide

[Tabris]

Hahahah what're he honest chances. Sooo ironic.

[Dwz]

I've actually read this "story" in a book called "Weird True Tales" or something to the sort (The name book was translated so I don't know the exact name right now) it had all sorts of weird shit, like raining frogs which was explained as a hurricane passing through a pond sweeping up frogs and all that crap and then scattering it all when it died down and so on and so forth ... one of the stories was about a man who jumped out a building to commit suicide and got accidentally shot by a man from an apartment who was having a family quarrel some stories down. The suicider in that story was the son of the quarreling couple so basically the father shot the son.

Is this story confirmed as true? Or is this just a story with no real leads? I wonder if something like this could've happened for real

[Steve]

Dec 10, 2008 20:54:02 GMT Dwz said:

I've actually read this "story" in a book called "Weird True Tales" or something to the sort (The name book was translated so I don't know the exact name right now) it had all sorts of weird shit, like raining frogs which was explained as a hurricane passing through a pond sweeping up frogs and all that crap and then scattering it all when it died down and so on and so forth ... one of the stories was about a man who jumped out a building to commit suicide and got accidentally shot by a man from an apartment who was having a family quarrel some stories down. The suicider in that story was the son of the quarreling couple so basically the father shot the son.

Is this story confirmed as true? Or is this just a story with no real leads? I wonder if something like this could've happened for real

I did some looking.And unless the planets were alligned in some strange formation.I am beginning to think,its just too rediculous to be true.

Reading at this forum: forums.vault9.net/index.php?showtopic=38926 I found the same story posted.Along with similar stories.So it could be nothing more than a morbid joke.But brilliantly written, to make it sound like it actually happened.

[piratemonkey]

What a weird, weird story.

[Boris Stoke]

Actually, this story is listed as false on snopes.com. It is still a really cool tale, though.

[Toadkiller Dog]

Can't say if it's true, Snopes says no, who knows.
But it was an interesting read, thanks for sharing.

[Vio]

I heard this story before, but I don't know if it was true or false.

But it is still another way to kill oneself, like a Rude Goldberg style suicide, at least from a legal standpoint.

[BogeyMeph]

haha xD it is kind of like a rube goldberg hahahaha *loves it* even if it's not true xD it's a brilliant story

[twinvictim]

@.@

Wow, what an incredibly complex way to die. Pretty frickin sweet, kinda.

[blackswordsman]

Pity it's not real. It's brilliant!

[Judas]

You guys should really watch Magnolia...

[King Me]

I dunno. That's pretty cool, but I still think this is better:

[Lolli]

Lol, that is pretty interesting King Me

[Vaan-Knight]

Very interesting, almost as much as the fact that this thread attracted so many readers only with the title xD