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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (11644)	9/23/1999 7:49:00 PM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 62551

GOD SENT YOU > > A little girl was puzzled as to her origin. "How did I get here, > Mommy?" > > Her mommy said, using a well-worn phrase, "God sent you." > > "And did God send you too, Mommy?" > > "Yes, Dear, He did." > > "And Grandma and great grandma and daddy, too?" asked the little girl? > > Again the answer was "yes." > > The child shook her head in disbelief. "Then you mean to tell me there > > has been no sex in this family for 200 years? ...... No wonder everyone > > is so cranky!" >> > >

To: Gary Korn who wrote (11644)	9/23/1999 8:30:00 PM
From: RJL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 62551

Wasn't that story the basis of a Homicide: Life on the Street episode?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (11644)	9/23/1999 9:56:00 PM
From: Mike 2.0	Respond to of 62551

Anyone who finds this stuff interesting (like me :-) should check out The New Detectives on TLC. Good to see downright evil Murder-one killers get totally busted with latest high tech forensic technology (DNA, toxicology, etc.)

To: Gary Korn who wrote (11644)	9/24/1999 9:41:00 AM
From: broken_cookie	Respond to of 62551

Not really a true story but a great one. Origins: This amazing tale appeared on the Internet in August 1994. Prized both for the entertaining logic problem it presents as well as the morally just surprise ending, even years later it remains a cyber-favorite and continues to be forwarded to ever-widening circles of netizens. A story this good should be true. Alas, it's not. There never was a suicidal Ronald Opus, a feuding, shotgun-wielding older couple, or an increasingly confused medical examiner trying to get to the bottom of things. But there is some truth to it, for there is a Don Harper Mills, and he did tell this very story at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Here's how Mills explained his involvement with the story in a 1997 interview: I made up the story in 1987 to present at the meeting, for entertainment and to illustrate how if you alter a few small facts you greatly alter the legal consequences. In 1994 someone copied it on to the Internet. I was told it had already garnered 200,000 enquiries on the Net. In the past two years I've had around 400 telephone calls about it - librarians, journalists, law students, even law professors wanting to incorporate it into text books. It was hypothetical; just a story made up to illustrate a point. It's hard to imagine anyone at that 1987 meeting took it for anything else. How did a 1987 illustrative anecdote morph into 1994's believed-to-be-true story? We'll likely never know. How did Dr. Mills come to concoct such a tale? As he said in a 1997 interview, "Some of it I wrote out, and some of it I invented as I went along." Ronald Opus never lived. And his death will never die. Barbara "levity longevity" Mikkelson Sightings: This amusing hypothetical case showed up in the 16 January 1998 episode of the TV series Homicide. This tale is also said to have been used in an episode of the TV show Law & Order, but in that show District Attorney Ben Stone merely offered a hypothetical example of a man who jumped off the Empire State Building because he wanted a ham sandwich but was shot on the way down by someone who thought he was committing suicide. A 1998 episode of the Australian TV show Murder Call also featured this legend. Last updated: 28 October 1998 snopes.com