[Dixielandjazz] Stop the music - yo're killing me!
G. William Oakley
gwilliamoakley at wispertel.net
Thu Sep 3 09:23:27 PDT 2009
Sorry Don. See below:
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*Home <http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp> --> Horrors
<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/horrors.asp> --> Freakish Fatalities
<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/freakish.asp#opus> --> 1994's
Most Bizarre Suicide*
1994's Most Bizarre Suicide
*Claim:* Murder or suicide? The coroner had his hands full determining
just that, in the case of a man who jumped off a building only to have a
shotgun blast finish him off halfway down.
*Status:* */False./*
*Example:* /[Collected on the Internet, 1996]/
For those of you who were unable to attend the awards dinner during the
annual [American Academy of Forensic Sciences] meeting in San Diego, you
missed a tall tale on complex forensics presented by AAFS President Don
Harper Mills in his opening remarks. The following is a recount of Dr.
Mills' 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.
*Origins:* This Falling man amazing tale appeared on the Internet in
August 1994. 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.
A story this good should be true. Alas, it's not. 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. 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.
Here's how Mills explained his involvement with the story in a 1997
interview:
I made up the story in 1987 to present at the meeting, for entertainment
and to illustrate how if you alter a few small facts you greatly alter
the legal consequences. In 1994 someone copied it on to the Internet. I
was told it had already garnered 200,000 enquiries on the Net. In the
past two years I've had around 400 telephone calls about it -
librarians, journalists, law students, even law professors wanting to
incorporate it into text books.
It was hypothetical; just a story made up to illustrate a point. It's
hard to imagine anyone at that 1987 meeting took it for anything
else.
How did a 1987 illustrative anecdote morph into 1994's
believed-to-be-true story? We'll likely never know. How did Dr. Mills
come to concoct such a tale? As he said in a 1997 interview, "Some of it
I wrote out, and some of it I invented as I went along."
Ronald Opus never lived. And his death will never die.
In 1998 we began seeing versions attributed "A true story from
Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt." If that venerable wire service
employs a writer by that name, we've yet to see anything under his
byline. As for AP itself having run the Opus story, no, it never did.
Barbara "levity longevity" Mikkelson
*Sightings:* This amusing hypothetical case showed up in the 16 January
1998 episode of the TV series /Homicide/ and is also said to have been
mentioned in an episode of the TV show /Law & Order/, but in the latter
case District Attorney Ben Stone merely offered a hypothetical example
of a man who jumped off the Empire State Building because he wanted a
ham sandwich and was shot on the way down by someone who thought he was
committing suicide. A 1998 episode of the Australian TV show /Murder
Call/ also featured this legend, and it pops up early in the 1999 film
/Magnolia/ <http://www.magnoliamovie.com/>.
*Last updated:* 20 January 2007
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/opus.asp
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2009 by Barbara and David P.
Mikkelson.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources /Sources:/
Brown, Lonnie. "Twisting the Truth: Murder or Suicide?"
/The [Lakeland] Ledger./ 26 January 1997 (p. A13).
Gallivan, Joseph. "Did He Jump or Was He Plugged?"
/Sunday Telegraph./ 2 March 1997 (p. 2).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Ingle wrote:
> If the state of the music business gets to the poit where you want to
> endit all, consider this
> story about ending it all. Just call it "I'll be glad wehen you'redead
> you rascal you!"
>
> 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 the 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 deceased was aware that a safety net had
> been installed just below
> 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.
>
> The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was
> occupied by an elderly
> man and his wife. 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, and both said
> that they thought the shotgun was not loaded.The old man said it was a
> 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, assuming 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 for 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-story building on
> March 23rd,
> only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story
> window.
>
> The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical
> examiner closed
> the case as a suicide.
>
> And you think a wedding gig is tough!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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