# How would this pan out in real life?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 4, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327 "2013-10-04T05:08:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/1 "2013-10-04T05:08:17Z")
First of all,I’m sorry if this has been posted before. I couldn’t find it in a search.
I don’t think I would class this as a suicide. Mr. Opus was shot by his Father.
On March 23,1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus
had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit
suicide.
He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past
the ninth 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 eighth floor level to protect some building
workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his
suicide the way he had planned.
The room on the ninth 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 upset
that when he
pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went
through
the window, striking Mr. 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 the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both
adamant, and both said that they thought the shotgun was
not loaded. The old man said it was a 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, assuming 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 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 one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
Now comes the exquisite twist…
Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, 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 ten-story
building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing
through the ninth story window.
The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical
examiner closed the case as a suicide.
---
### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/2 "2013-10-04T05:18:30Z")
I didn’t read the whole post because I’ve seen Magnolia enough times.
Anyways, the person that pulled the trigger would be guilty of murder in some form or another. No matter how you look at it, if she hadn’t pulled the trigger of if she had checked the weapon before aiming at something she didn’t want to destory, he wouldn’t be dead.
Remember folks, always treat the gun like it’s loaded.
---
### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/3 "2013-10-04T05:24:05Z")
Here’s the scene for anyone that just wants to watch it instead of trying to read it all.
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ec51smvcsDY/maxresdefault.jpg ""Magnolia" - Sydney Barringer's unsuccessful suicide") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec51smvcsDY)
---
### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/4 "2013-10-04T05:32:16Z")
I was wondering why you changed around all the names and added dates, but it looks like it’s an Urban Legend as well.
> **[Suicide?!?!?!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=144571)**
>
> I got this in my e-mail yesterday. So I was wondering, is this an urban legend or did it really happened??? If it did happened is it really suicide? If it was me I would charge the old guy with manslaughter!! At the 1994 annual awards dinner given...
> **[A question of law](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=140282)**
>
> Can’t remember the (fictional) show, but two lawyers were talking about a hypothetical situation they’d had thrown at them in law school. A guy is in his office in a 100 storey building when a man falls past his window. With commendable speed and...
---
### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/5 "2013-10-04T05:56:55Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I was wondering why you changed around all the names and added dates, but it looks like it’s an Urban Legend as well.
> [Suicide?!?!?! - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=144571)
>
> [A question of law - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=140282)
I’m wondering how you think I have changed all the names. The link you provided uses the same name. Anyway, I just cut and pasted it from an email I had received some time ago, and I had already confirmed it was an Urban Legend. My question was “How would this pan out in real life”? Not “Is this a true story”. I now realize it has been posted before, so I’m sorry I ruffled your feathers.
---
### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/6 "2013-10-04T06:10:18Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I didn’t read the whole post because I’ve seen Magnolia enough times.
>
> Anyways, the person that pulled the trigger would be guilty of murder in some form or another. No matter how you look at it, if she hadn’t pulled the trigger of if she had checked the weapon before aiming at something she didn’t want to destory, he wouldn’t be dead.
>
> Remember folks, always treat the gun like it’s loaded.
I would say attempted murder of the wife, perhaps manslaughter (or some other offense less than murder) of Opus.
---
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/7 "2013-10-04T08:00:09Z")
How would this pan out in real life?
In real life this is a typical case often argued in moot courts of law schools and some students do better than others. That’s real life.
Because the shooter believed the gun was unloaded there was no intent to kill and they cannot be guilty of murder. They could be guilty of negligent homicide and definitely guilty of living in a very improbable universe.
---
### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/8 "2013-10-04T13:29:32Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_York](#):
>
> I’m wondering how you think I have changed all the names. The link you provided uses the same name. Anyway, I just cut and pasted it from an email I had received some time ago, and I had already confirmed it was an Urban Legend. My question was “How would this pan out in real life”? Not “Is this a true story”. I now realize it has been posted before, so I’m sorry I ruffled your feathers.
If you look at my posts I mentioned that I didn’t know it was an UL until right now, I’d only heard of the scenario from the movie Magnolia (where they don’t use those names). Once I found out it was an Urban Legend and it wasn’t you that came up with the names and that they were established as part of the UL I searched our board for ‘Ronald Opus’ and came up with the other two links.
---
### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/9 "2013-10-04T17:14:43Z")
Huh?
INANAL, but…
If you didn’t _intend_ to kill the guy passing your window, it’s not murder.
If you missed a woman standing a few feet in front of you, I think a prosecutor would have a very hard time proving you did not deliberately aim wide at the last moment, so ho do you prove murderous intent, or even negligence?
(Unless he’s stupid enough to confess, in which case all bets are off. IIRC, if you intend to kill A and end up killing B by that act, it’s murder.)
The odds anyone could hit someone and fatally wound them are pretty low, when they pass (presumably unannounced) past the window having fallen about 10 feet, so falling at a pretty good speed.
Unles they could hear the person getting ready to jump (pretty hard if there’s a loud argument going on), the thought that the shotgun blast had the potential to do serious harm is very unlikely and not really forseeable. So you can’t even really be guilty of negligent homicide for shooting out a 9th floor window into the blue sky.
Best I see is negligence, careless use of a firearm.
As for the son - he attempted death by jumping, and would have failed to accomplish this.
We presume he did not look down before jumping. if he ahd survived, maybe his lawyer would argue he knew about the net and had been watching too many Jackass movies.
The death by shotgun was an accident, he did not aim (sorry) to get hit.
He did not load the shotgun with intent to commit suicide, or jump with the intent to get shot, so therefore it was not suicide.
The loading of the gun would result maybe in an attempted murder charge, or at least reckless endangerment.
At best, the coroner would likely return the verdict of “death by misadventure”.
---
### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-pan-out-in-real-life/670327/10 "2013-10-04T17:35:33Z")
In real life, the old guy would have shot his wife.