Do you like to read a good murder mystery?

From: Al J.

Sent: February 20, 2013

To: undisclosed recipients

Subject: Fw: Do you like to read a good murder mystery?

Anyone want to take a shot at the odds of this ever happening again?

For those who have served on jury....this one is something to think about...Just when you think you have heard everything!

Not even Law and Order would attempt to capture this mess. This is an unbelievable twist of fate! At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, (AAFS)President, Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

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 comes 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.

A true story from Associated Press.