The risk factors for suicidal ideation can be divided into three categories: psychiatric disorders, life events, and family history. Generally, suicide is a tragedy and a great loss to the victim’s family and friends. Just as it is the result of a scattered life, it also leaves behind a few more scattered lives in this world. However, some suicide cases could be different from all. They are so bizarre and so strange that it just leaves people completely stunned. One such example is the case of Ronald Opus.
The story of Ronal Opus
On March 23rd of 1994, an American man named Ronald Opus decided to finish his life so he took the easiest way to commit suicide, jumping from the building roof he was living at. He did this and left behind a note for his family stating, “I have lost all my hopes to live a better life.” But on 24th March, his postmortem report stated that Ronald was shot in the head by gunfire and died.
When the investigation started it appears the bullet that caused Ronald’s death was shot from the 9th-floor of the same building he was living. An old couple was living there for a long time. Neighbours told that this couple used to fight all the time, and strangely when Ronald jumped off his roof, at the same time, they saw the old man holding a gun and threatening his wife to kill her. In extreme aggression, the husband unintentionally shot at his wife. But as his wife was standing far from him, the bullet missed her and hit in the head of Ronald who just jumped off the building roof to his death.
Twist remains in the story!
When the case appears in court the old man insisted that they used to fight all the time, and he always threatened his wife but the gun was always empty. After further investigation, a strange fact came to light, any relative of the old couple saw their son loading the old man’s gun.
It was later found that the reason was that their son asked his mother for money but the mother refused, so he made a plan to get rid of his old parents. He knew very well that they used to fight all the time and when the next time his father will shoot at his mother by this empty pistol, it will end up taking his mother’s life as now it was loaded with a bullet and then his father will be jailed.
But things didn’t go with the plan. The bullet didn’t hit his mother, instead, it hit in the head of still-falling Ronald at his suicide time. So the culprit of this suicide-murder case is now their son. Strange!!
Now have a look again on complete story
The strangest thing in all this story is that Ronald was actually the son of the old couple. He put a bullet in his father’s gun to get rid of his parents. But due to bad financial conditions and delayed fight with his parents, he decided to finish himself. When he jumped from the roof of the ten-storey building, the same bullet hit in his head. So in this manner, Ronald is a killer and also the victim at the same time!
What is the truth behind the story of Ronald Opus?
Though the whole story seems like a true crime case, Ronald Opus is the subject of a fictional murder case, often misreported as a true story. In other versions of this story, the name “Ronald Obos” or “Ronaldo Obos” has been used instead of “Ronald Opus.”
The case was originally told by Don Harper Mills, then president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, in a speech at a banquet in 1987. After it began to circulate on the internet as a factual story and attained the status of urban legend, Mills stated that he made it up as an illustrative anecdote “to show how different legal consequences can follow each twist in a homicide inquiry.”
The story first appeared on the Internet in August 1994 and has been widely circulated since, on webpages, in chat rooms, and even print publications. In one sentence, the whole story is a hoax.
