Forensics, application of science to criminal and civil law. An interesting aspect of the medical field is its application in solving Criminal cases. Forensic scientist are awesome in the way they think and analyse crime scenes, they pay attention to little details that a normal eye will overlook. The case of Ronald Opus told by Dr Don Harper Mills on march 23, 1994, after medical examination it was concluded that he died from a head wound caused by a gunshot.
Mr Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-storey building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the 9th 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 8th floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.
Ordinarily, a person who set out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended is still defined as commiting suicide. That Mr Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. In the roon on the 9th 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 upsst that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the bullet went through the window striking Mr Opus. When 1 intends to kill subject A but end up killing subject B in the attempt, 1 is guilty of murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were adamant and both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun, he had no intention to kill her therefore the killing of Mr Opus appeared to be an accident; that is if the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple son loading the shotgun about 6 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 1 of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
Now comes the exquisite TWIST
Further investigation revealed that the son was infact 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 10 storey building only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the 9th storey building. The son had actually murdered himself so the Medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
Isn't Forensic science great??
What is ur take on this, murder or suicide....