Santa Anna (AP) - The medical examiner viewed the body of
Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound
of 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 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 the pellets went through the a 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 [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."
