{"id":13482,"date":"2019-05-01T13:23:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T11:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/?p=13482"},"modified":"2019-05-01T13:24:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T11:24:25","slug":"deselbstmord-oder-mordensuicide-or-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/archives\/13482\/deselbstmord-oder-mordensuicide-or-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide or murder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the 1994 annu\u00adal awards din\u00adner giv\u00aden by the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan Asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion for Foren\u00adsic Sci\u00adence, AAFS<\/span> Pres\u00adi\u00addent Don Harp\u00ader Mills astound\u00aded his audi\u00adence in San Diego with the legal com\u00adpli\u00adca\u00adtions of a bizarre death. Here is the story.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>On 23 March 1994, the med\u00adical exam\u00adin\u00ader viewed the body of Ronald Opus and con\u00adclud\u00aded that he died from a shot\u00adgun wound of the head. The dece\u00addent had jumped from the top of a ten-sto\u00adry build\u00ading intend\u00ading to com\u00admit sui\u00adcide (he left a note indi\u00adcat\u00ading his despon\u00adden\u00adcy). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was inter\u00adrupt\u00aded by a shot\u00adgun blast through a win\u00addow, which killed him instant\u00adly. Nei\u00adther the shoot\u00ader nor the dece\u00addent was aware that a safe\u00adty net had been erect\u00aded at the eighth floor lev\u00adel to pro\u00adtect some win\u00addow wash\u00aders and that Opus would not have been able to com\u00adplete his sui\u00adcide any\u00adway because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Ordi\u00adnar\u00adi\u00adly,\u201d Dr. Mills con\u00adtin\u00adued, \u201ca per\u00adson who sets out to com\u00admit sui\u00adcide ulti\u00admate\u00adly suc\u00adceeds, even though the mech\u00ada\u00adnism might not be what he intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Opus was shot on the way to cer\u00adtain death nine sto\u00adries below prob\u00ada\u00adbly would not have changed his mode of death from sui\u00adcide to homi\u00adcide. But the fact that his sui\u00adci\u00addal intent would not have been suc\u00adcess\u00adful caused the med\u00adical exam\u00adin\u00ader to feel that he had homi\u00adcide on his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The room on the ninth floor whence the shot\u00adgun blast emanat\u00aded was occu\u00adpied by an elder\u00adly man and his wife. They were argu\u00ading and he was threat\u00aden\u00ading her with the shot\u00adgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trig\u00adger, he com\u00adplete\u00adly missed his wife and the pel\u00adlets went through the a win\u00addow strik\u00ading Opus.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>When one intends to kill sub\u00adject A but kills sub\u00adject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the mur\u00adder of sub\u00adject B. When con\u00adfront\u00aded with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that nei\u00adther knew that the shot\u00adgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-stand\u00ading habit to threat\u00aden his wife with the unloaded shot\u00adgun. He had no inten\u00adtion to mur\u00adder her \u2014 there\u00adfore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an acci\u00addent. That is, the gun had been acci\u00adden\u00adtal\u00adly loaded.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00ading inves\u00adti\u00adga\u00adtion turned up a wit\u00adness who saw the old cou\u00adple\u2019s son load\u00ading the shot\u00adgun approx\u00adi\u00admate\u00adly six weeks pri\u00ador to the fatal inci\u00addent. It tran\u00adspired that the old lady had cut off her son\u2019s finan\u00adcial sup\u00adport and the son, know\u00ading the propen\u00adsi\u00adty of his father to use the shot\u00adgun threat\u00aden\u00ading\u00adly, loaded the gun with the expec\u00adta\u00adtion that his father would shoot his moth\u00ader. The case now becomes one of mur\u00adder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.<\/p>\n

There was an exquis\u00adite twist.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Fur\u00adther inves\u00adti\u00adga\u00adtion revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increas\u00ading\u00adly despon\u00addent over the fail\u00adure of his attempt to engi\u00adneer his moth\u00ader\u2019s mur\u00adder. This led him to jump off the ten-sto\u00adry build\u00ading on March 23, only to be killed by a shot\u00adgun blast through a ninth sto\u00adry window.
\n\u201cThe med\u00adical exam\u00adin\u00ader closed the case as a suicide.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sor\u00adry, this entry is only avail\u00adable in Deutsch.<\/p>\n Con\u00adtin\u00adue reading \u2192<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"iawp_total_views":48,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13484,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482\/revisions\/13484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heiniger-net.blog-net.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}