Murder Or Suicide?

Urban legend has it that Dr. Don Harper Mills, past president of the American Academy of Forensic Science, told this story at a 1987 annual awards dinner. The truth is, he actually did tell the story there—but only as a way to illustrate the challenges of his profession. So, the sad saga of Ronald Opus isn’t true as has been represented on the Internet for decades. When asked if he was surprised the story went viral, Dr. Mills replied, “no, not really. It’s a fabulous story.” That it is, doctor.

A medical examiner surveyed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he had died from a gunshot wound to the head. The victim had originally jumped from the top of a ten-story building, intending to take his own life. He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency. But as he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through the window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eight floor to protect building workers. Ronald Opus would have failed to complete his suicide attempt the way he planned.

“Ordinarily,” Dr. Mills continued, “a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as suicide. Because Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below, and because his suicide attempt would not have been successful due the the safety net, the medical examiner felt that he had a homicide on his hands.”

The shotgun blast had come from a room on the ninth floor that was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They had been arguing, and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he fired he missed his wife entirely, firing out the window, striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is still guilty of the murder of B. When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun wasn’t 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 Mr. 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 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 the father would shoot the mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the bizarre twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus himself. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the building, only to be killed by the shotgun blast passing through a lower window.

The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.