Roland Opus leaped off a Goddamned high Manhattan residential building on a June morning in 1994.

The body had been caught in a suicide net erected at the 8th floor to discourage jumpers. He died regardless, but the net enabled the autopsy to be performed. Immediate cause of death was found to be a shotgun blast to the head.

Since he would have normally survived the jump a murder investigation was begun.

At the time of the jump, NYPD received a call from a woman on the 15th floor who had heard a gunshot from the apartment next to her.

The responding officers had found an old man and an old woman squabbling in their apartment, the old man holding a 12-gauge shotgun. Their argument largely resided around who had loaded the weapon.

It turned out that as part of their regular, "To the MOON, Alice!" routines, the old man would point an unloaded shotgun at his wife and pull the trigger. This time, however, the gun had been loaded. The blast had missed his wife, taken out the 15th-floor window, and blown away the head of the jumper as he passed.

The odds of this, of course, are incalculable.

The husband swore up and down that they never kept the gun loaded. The only other person who had been in the apartment an hour earlier was their son. Police went to question the son but couldn't find him.

Meanwhile, further investigation by the coroner's office had revealed that the jumper -- Roland Opus -- had had serious financial difficulties (they run a credit check when you kill yourself. Scary, no?) And though his parents were very monied, they'd cut him off.

The coroner's office had found that Roland Opus's parents lived on the fifteenth floor of the building from which he had jumped. They were actually on the phone with the parents of the deceased, relaying the infomation of his death when they recieved a call from the NYPD officer in charge of the attempted murder investigation, who had just heard word of a jumper "minus a head" at the base of the same building and corresponding timewise with reports of the discharge of the shotgun and wanting to know what THAT was all about.

It took them a while to figure this one out...

It turned out that the jumper had indeed been in his parents' apartment earlier that morning. Knowing full well his parents' histrionic routine with the shotgun, he had loaded the weapon, figuring that sooner or later his father would threaten his mother with it, and pull the trigger. Then, with his mother dead, and his father in jail, he stood to inherit the entirety of his family fortune.

However, disconsolate, Roland Opus flung himself from the roof of the building less than an hour later. At the same moment his father and mother were in the midst of a typical argument and Carl Opus, as always, pointed the shotgun at his wife and pulled the trigger. This time the weapon discharged. The blast missed Mrs. Opus but struck their son, young Roland, in the head as he sailed by, killing him instantly.

After much debate, the coroner's office ruled this Death by Misadventure, since for all practical purposes, the young Roland Opus had indeed killed himself.

This won an award at the 1994 National Council of City Coroners meeting for "most innovative death of 1994."

The story was sold to "Law and Order," who refused to run it for fear that no one would believe that it ever happened.

Happy Holidays.

thats awesome... I could definately see that making a good law and order episode. nice find

i just emailed that to everyone i know

Now is it our job to say this is a made-up story, featured on Snopes and mainly known from the movie Magnolia?

Is this real sounds to wild to be true, but to crazy; not to be

did the old man get charged with anything?

Story is fake look at it in snopes.com

Ok, I have a question (fake story or not). If Roland planned it so he could inherit the money, then why on Earth did he go jumping off the building? I either missed something in the story or am pointing out something very obvious.

Yeah, but he gets shot in the stomach

I have to say I find Magnolia's version more plausible.

ok! BAD BAD




BAD


BAD





BAD BAD




























1994 IS MY BIRTH YEAR!!!!!

"Suicide net on the eigth floor"????

"goddamned high residential building"????

Why oh why did the Admins put this Urban Legends Forum up?

This will just perpetuate these ludicrous stories ad infintum.

For anyone who might, even for a moment think that this story is true:

Let me assure you that there is no building in NYC that has "suicide nets".

This has more holes in it than my ham & swiss on Rye.

Pity it's not real, the perfect bit of Karma on the son.

thats incredible,i would have bought the rights to that,who cares if nobody would beleive it,its really good

It was to my understanding that Urban Legends are meant to be Legends (!), i.e. not true

Yeah, lighten up JM, these stories are fun to pass around, noone (with the possible exception of iac tracker ) takes them seriously

>sigh< Not if the forwarded e-mails I get are any indication......

People do not seem too concerned with differentiating between 'campfire stories' and true stories.

Did you hear about the guy who went to Mardi Gras, met some people, got drunk and woke up in a bathtub full of ice with a note to call 911?

but we here on UM are informed intellignet human beings, we can differentiate between truth and myth with veritable ease right?.... on second thoughts considering some of the threads appearing in the conspiracy forum i suggest this comment be stricken from the record

Your Honor, The Prosecution Rests.

i read this in an email i got.

Wow some story fake or not...
would make a good tv episode for one of
those FBI cop shows

I don't care if it was real or not, it's damn funny

Sorry, sick sense of humour here, but nice bit of karma tho.

An Award..you have got to be kidding me

Why does everybody talk like that's the most reliable website ever?

im still wondering why he jumped out the window if he wanted to inherit the fortune.....

Since when would ANY tv show turn down something because it was too crazy to be true? And I agree with American, what is it with snopes? How we know if they're right or not? Anyways, cool story. . .nice and morbidly humorous. . .Although, I do have to say that I, too, have received this in an email, which automatically drops the likelyhood of its authenticity quite a bit.

Edit: Plus, I don't think there is a such thing as an award like that. Don't you think people would get really offended if coroners had a "Most innovative death" award?

Bad luck?

Or Karma?

...or both?

And if there were any up, then teenagers would be jumping in them just to look for a thrill.


I know I would.

Why? I got one! "I'd like to thank my mom and...what? Oh, I have to be dead to get the award? Crap!"

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie . . .I would too. . .but I'd only do it from like the 9th story. . .But. . .how are you supposed to get down? Climb through a window or something?

You guys have suicide nets on buildings?!

I don't care if its true or not, funny, morbidly funny.

I wondered that too.

I've heard this before.

hahaha no way. that's insane!

I'm in NY quite alot and have never heard or seen suicide nets on buildings...but then again it would be hard to walk in the city, and look up at buildings to see if they are there, without getting killed yourself...

Tighten the nets so they're a bit more like a trampoline, see if you can bounce from the Empire State building onto another net a few blocks away, and keep going until you land in a river/street with a hell of a smile on your face.

Cool story BOOM HEADSHOT hehe

I like this urban legend....I never heard it before it must be pretty new..

omg that would be horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1