Okay, I'm excited.
Next Monday is the release day for FLIGHTS OF FICTION, published by Handcar Press.
Why am I excited? Because one of the eleven stories in this anthology is "Motive" by LD Masterson.
It's my first real honest-to-gosh publication.
Here's the cover.
I'm saving the details for next Monday's post but I had to show off the cover.
Can I get a woo woo?
Mind Boggler for Today: Since this was a short post, I offer this...
At the 1994 annual
awards dinner given for Forensic Science, (AAFS) President Dr. Don Harper Mills
astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre
death.
Here is the
story:
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 10-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 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 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 one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald
Opus.
Now for 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 10 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.
(I said it was mind boggling.)
(I said it was mind boggling.)
