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So I'm taking Sociology of Murder this quarter. The lecturer is really fantastic. One of maybe three professors I've had in my college career who can talk to a class of several hundred students while keeping their attention. Today he told us this story, as told to him by American Association of Forensic Scientits president Dr. Don Harper Mills.
Some of you may have heard about this before. Still, it bears repeating for those who haven't. I took notes in class, so it should be pretty faithful.
Ronald Opus had decided to commit suicide. He left a note in his tenth floor apartment and decided to jump off the balcony.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) for Opus, he hadn't realized that the building was being painted and that the painters had set up a safety net on the sixth floor.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for Opus, he was likely never aware of this fact because, just after jumping, a shotgun blast ripped through a ninth story window and into Opus's head, killing him instantly.
Investigators discovered that an elderly man and his wife had been quarreling in their apartment and the husband had been threatening his wife with the shotgun, when it went off, missing his wife, but hitting Opus. The man, protesting his innocence, claimed that he didn't know the shotgun was loaded and that he habitually threatened his wife with the unloaded shotgun during their arguments. His wife corroborated the story. Neither knew how the shotgun had came to be loaded.
A witness who was later questioned revealed that she had seen the couple's son loading the shotgun six weeks prior to the incident. The mother revealed that she had recently cut her son off financially, and that he had known well his parent's argumentative habits.
Several weeks later, growing despondant over his ailing fiscal situation and his failure to bring about his mother's death, the son - whose name is Ronald Opus - writes a note and attempts suicide by jumping off his tenth floor balcony.
Cute little story isn't it? Of course, as you may have guessed by now, this is simply an urban legent. It was made up by Dr. Mills (who freely admits that he did so) in order to impress upon his audience that determining a cause of death and/or crime commited in some cases can be vague and exceedingly difficult. My professor related it for the same reason.
I learned that there are five categories for cause of death that go onto death certificates: unknown, natural causes, suicide, accidental (which includes things like single-car crashes or being struck by lightning, but doesn't include accidental homicide) and, of course, homicide, both accidental and intentional.
I'm a little fuzzy on this progression, because my professor was running short on time and rushing to finish, but I think it goes like this.
The case begins as an attempted suicide, and becomes a homicide (murder in the 2nd degree). When we learn that the father thought the gun was empty, it's still a homicide, with a crime of involuntary manslaughter.* It remains a homicide when we learn about the son, but the crime committed is now murder in the first degree. Once we learn the son's identity as Ronald Opus, it becomes a suicide again.
*This charge could probably be maintained dispite later events. Then again, as I said, I'm not 100% on this part, so if anyone can correct me, on any portion, please do.
I find this story both hilarious and interesting because it's as elaborate as it needs to be, and much neater than other similar stories. I almost don't even care that it's an urban legend.
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