![]() ![]() Here's how Mills explained his involvement with the story in a 1997 interview: But there is some truth to it, for there is a Don Harper Mills, and he did tell this very story at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. ![]() There never was a suicidal Ronald Opus, a feuding, shotgun-wielding older couple, or an increasingly confused medical examiner trying to get to the bottom of things. The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.Ī story this good should be true. 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 case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.įurther investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. 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. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.īut further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. He had no intent to murder her therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. 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. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. 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.įurther 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. 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. 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. (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. 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. 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. Prized both for the entertaining logic problem it presents as well as the morally-just surprise ending, even years later it remains a cyber-favorite and continues to be forwarded to ever-widening circles of netizens:įor those of you who were unable to attend the awards dinner during the annual meeting in San Diego, you missed a tall tale on complex forensics presented by AAFS President Don Harper Mills in his opening remarks. An amazing tale of a bizarre suicide attempt appeared on the Internet in August 1994. ![]()
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