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Safe Suicide

Started by neilmarr, March 28, 2007, 02:17:12 AM

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neilmarr

A guy tried to commit suicide in Nice yesterday by jumping off his sixth floor balcony. He landed on a car roof and survived, though he's in a bad way. He was wearing a motorcycle crash helmet. Neil

Geoff_N

It's another example of real life being more bizarre than we can get away with in fiction.

The most bizarre true suicide / murder / twist case I've come across is this one:

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in
San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the
story.

"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he
left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor,
his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed
him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety
net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window
washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide
anyway because of this."

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide
ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he
intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below
probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.

But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused
the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.

"The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied
by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her
with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he
completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window
striking 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 this charge, the
old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun
was 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 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 approximately six weeks prior to the fatal
incident. 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. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son
for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. "Further investigation revealed that the son
[Ronald Opus] 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 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through
a ninth story window.

"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

Ed

Well that explains that then - Neil's guy wore the crash helmet because he heard about Geoff's guy :afro:

Still very bizarre, though. I wonder if he did it so he could still have an open casket? I reckon that was it. :scratch:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Geoff_N

Quote from: blunt on March 28, 2007, 04:37:57 AM
I wonder if he did it so he could still have an open casket? I reckon that was it. :scratch:

I hadn't thought of that. Interesting idea.


Walker

Quote from: blunt on March 28, 2007, 04:37:57 AM
I wonder if he did it so he could still have an open casket? I reckon that was it. :scratch:
That's the first thing I thought of, too.

Geoff, that has to be the strangest thing I've read in a loooong time. If it weren't true it would be funny. Even being true it still has the makings of a humorous tale. The father could have been a world class skeet-shooter in his day.
"Lord, here comes the flood, we will say goodbye to flesh and blood. If, again, the seas are silent in any still alive, it'll be those who gave their island to survive. Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry."
Peter Gabriel.

DragonMom

Geoff, I'd like to post this story on another site - where did you find it originally?  The ladies I hang out with will love this just as much as I did.  :bleh:
"When Mister Safety Catch is not on, Mister Crossbow is No Longer your Friend."  - Terry Pratchett

http://www.pretty-scary.net

hugs_and_love

Quote from: blunt on March 28, 2007, 04:37:57 AM
Well that explains that then - Neil's guy wore the crash helmet because he heard about Geoff's guy :afro:

Still very bizarre, though. I wonder if he did it so he could still have an open casket? I reckon that was it. :scratch:

Yes there could have been an open casket.  When my friend killed himself last year he shot himself between the eyes, with a believe a shotgun.
"If a man has not found something he is willing to die for then he isn't fit to live."
"You can lust at yourself; it is called narcissism."