Short Stuff: Killing a Dead Body

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know

Episode: Short Stuff: Killing a Dead Body

Date: September 17, 2025
Hosts: Josh & Chuck (iHeartPodcasts)

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Overview

In this “Short Stuff” episode, Josh and Chuck explore the bizarre and thought-provoking question: Can you legally or physically murder someone who is already dead? Using real (and some legendary) cases, they journey through legal precedents in France, the US, Canada, and Australia to explain how intent and circumstance shape criminal responsibility in these macabre scenarios. Throughout, they mix in their signature banter, detours into pop culture, and memorable legal oddities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Magnolia (and Ronald Opus) Story

• [02:23–04:17]
  • The hosts kick things off reminiscing about the film Magnolia, which opens with vignettes, including a story narrated by Ricky Jay about a man who attempts suicide, but is killed by a stray bullet fired by his mother.
  • They reveal this outlandish story stems from a forensic “urban legend”—the Ronald Opus case—created by Don Harper Mills in 1987 to illustrate how new evidence can dramatically alter coroner's findings.
  • “He loaded the gun that killed him. And so the medical examiner ruled it a suicide after all.” — Josh [03:51]
  • The story’s not true, but sets up the episode’s central theme: legal ambiguity around cause of death.

2. Can You Murder a Dead Body? Legal Possibility vs. Intent

• [06:45–07:13; 08:35–12:15]
  • The core of the episode discusses the “legal impossibility” versus “intention” debate in murder law. Is it a crime to try to kill someone already dead?
  • One of the best-known cases is from France, 1986 (the “death of Monsieur Wilkins”):
    • Monsieur Wilkins is knocked out and killed by Monsieur Charrot.
    • Later, Monsieur Pere de Roult, thinking Wilkins is still alive, beats and strangles the body, only to learn Wilkins was already dead.
    • Legal scholars debate: Is it a crime if the act was impossible (the victim was dead), or does intent (trying to kill someone you thought was alive) prevail?
  • “It was impossible for him to complete this act, which means that he can't possibly be guilty of it. ... And other people said ... his intent was to murder this man, therefore he's guilty of attempted murder.” — Chuck [08:38–09:15]

3. Historical Legal Precedents

• [10:06–12:21]
  • 1975, New York City:
    • Michael Geller is shot three times in the chest by Joe Bush.
    • Melvin Dlugash then shoots Geller in the head five more times.
    • Dlugash claims Geller was already dead; he's initially convicted, but the conviction is overturned. The court shifts the focus from possibility to intent: if you believe your victim is alive and act to kill, you can be convicted of attempted (not actual) murder.
  • The French high court and New York’s Supreme Court ultimately rule similarly—intent matters more than the “impossibility” of murder.

4. Modern Applications & Other Cases

• [12:55–14:56]
  • Josh and Chuck note how this principle crops up more than expected.
  • Police Shootings: Example of a Toronto cop shooting a suspect, then firing more shots after the person is likely dead. The later shots constitute attempted murder, even if the first were justified.
  • Australia 2014 (Melbourne Mercy Killing):
    • Rocky "Spartacus" Matt Scassi is shot in the head during a struggle. Daniel Darrington delivers a “mercy” shot and then further shots, believing Matt Scassi may still be alive.
    • Darrington can’t be convicted of murder for the subsequent shots, but does get convicted of attempted murder, as he believed his victim might still be alive.
  • “He demonstrated quite clearly that he thought Matt Scassi was still alive and shot him to kill him, however merciful the act was supposed to be.” — Chuck [14:38]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On legal intent vs. impossibility in law:

  “What you intended to do determines your guilt or innocence, not the actual fact or possibility of whether you could have done what you were trying to do.” — Josh [12:03]

• On the frequency of these cases:

  “This actually happens with surprising frequency. ... I would not think that there would be more than one or two cases, but there are some here or there.” — Chuck [12:55]

• Moral for listeners:

  “If somebody is potentially already dead, call an ambulance.” — Josh [15:15]

• Movie trope reference:

  “This kind of thing ... is in movies a lot. ... To prove your loyalty to the organization, someone’s in there, ‘I killed most of him, you got to finish them off, so we’re both liable or whatever.’” — Josh [15:24]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:23–04:17| Magnolia/Ronald Opus Story | | 06:45–07:13| Introduction to Legal Impossibility | | 08:35–09:47| The Wilkins/Charrot/Pere de Roult Case | | 10:06–12:21| NYC Geller/Dlugash Case | | 12:55–14:56| Modern & International Cases (Toronto, Melbourne)| | 15:15 | Takeaways and pop culture/movie trope discussion |

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Conclusion: The Legal Weirdness of Killing the Dead

Josh and Chuck wrap up with the lesson that law ultimately cares most about the intent behind a crime—even if ending a life was, by definition, impossible at the time. It's a thoroughly SYSK blend of quirky legal history, darkly funny stories, and the occasional digression into movie trivia.

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If you want to sound smart at parties or just ponder the strangest intersections of law and mortality, this episode packs an engaging, accessible punch (with a dash of French pronunciation humor).

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[B]

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[A]

Well, I'll tell you what, buddy, if I was ever dead, I would want you to make sure of it by killing me again.

[B]

Yeah, but you'd be setting me up for a real legal quagmire that probably would not break in my favorite truck. So I don't know if I can.

[A]

Guarantee that could do a good impression of the late actor, magician slash kind of comedian, Ricky J. Because anyone who's ever seen the to my mind great PT Anderson movie from 1999, Magnolia, it is great. Will recall. And if you're interested, by the way, our friend of the show, Josh's boyfriend, Adam Paranica was on my PT Anderson series on Movie Crush. So we covered Magnolia and all the P.T. anderson movies before the show ended. That is.

[B]

I've got one even better than you.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

Another friend of the show, Paul F. Tompkins. P. F. Tompkins, not P.T. anderson. He did a script reading for Magnolia at the table with all the actors and apparently was not doing well enough for Tom Cruise not to say something like, can we keep getting this right? Or something. It's a hilarious story.

[A]

I've never heard that.

[B]

Where Tom Cruise is essentially like being mean to PF Tompkins for not doing a good job script reading.

[A]

Well, I sort of liked Tom Cruise until then. Cause Paula Tompkins is a national treasure and he was actually in the movie There Will Be Blood. Because I don't know, maybe he did such a good job at that table reading.

[B]

Yeah, that's another P.T. anderson film, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where he goes, I'm done with drinking milkshakes or something.

[A]

That's it. I don't want any more milkshake, thank you.

[B]

I think is the line, why are we talking about Magnolia, Chuck?

[A]

Because once again, at the beginning of that movie, there's a series of vignettes. Ricky J. Narrates them. And the first, I think it's the first one I don't recall. But it's a very kind of cool sequence where there's this story is told where a guy named Sydney Barringer attempted suicide, but it became a suicide.

[B]

He.

[A]

The long and short of it is he jumped out of a window. His parents lived in the apartment or in an apartment below him. And as he jumped and was falling to what he thought would be his death, his mom and dad got into an argument. His mom aims a shotgun at the dad, the gun goes off, it goes through the window, missing the father, and kills the son on his way down to land. The guy didn't know this when he went to jump off the building, but there was a net down there that would have caught him and saved his life.

[B]

Yeah. So it went from him taking his own life to his mom murdering him, to his suicide being ruled an attempted one. He couldn't have completed it because of that net. But it gets even crazier because when the police show up, the mom and dad say, we have no idea how this shotgun was loaded. We use it to threaten one another all the time. So we know not to load it. And upon more investigation, they found that Sidney had loaded it. So he loaded the gun that killed him. And so the medical examiner ruled it a suicide after all.

[A]

That's right. This story is not true. As it turns out, it was based on the story of Ronald Opus, which came from an oral story of the president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Don Harper Mills, in 1987. He told the story at a banquet, eventually found its way to the Internet. But Mills maintains that he made it up to illustrate how turning up new evidence can completely alter the outcome of a coroner's ruling.

[B]

Right. And it's a really good example of just how strange turns of events in evidence collection can completely alter a medical examiner's ruling on the cause of death. And that also applies to an entirely like niche, I guess, area of legal scholarship, which is can you murder someone who's already dead? And it turns out it's not nearly as straightforward as you would think.

[A]

All right, let's take a break. What a tease. And we'll come back with more talk of Boogie Nights and Heart eight right after this.

[C]

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[A]

S Y S K S K.

[B]

What stuff you should know. So, Chuck, we're talking about whether it's possible legally to murder a dead body. Obviously physically it's not. And there's actual case law where people have done something like this and legal scholars, prosecutors, defense teams, juries have had to sort this out. And one of the best known ones came in France in 1986.

[A]

That's right, with the death of Monsieur Wilkins. Monsieur Wilkins got in a brawl with Monsieur Charot. Is that right?

[B]

Okay, well, I mean, it's Monsieur Charo.

[A]

What did I say?

[B]

Monsieur.

[A]

How do you pronounce it?

[B]

Monsieur.

[A]

Really? Why is it M O, N? Is that all silent?

[B]

It's just the French doing their French thing.

[A]

So monsieur isn't a thing at all?

[B]

No, it's monsieur. I've heard of monsieur.

[A]

I just thought this is a more formal title or something.

[B]

No, no, that's it.

[A]

I didn't know it spelled M O, N. That's weird.

[B]

That's the famous monsieur.

[A]

All right, so Monsieur Charot. All right, so Monsieur Charot was in this brawl with Monsieur Wilkins. Wilkins was knocked unconscious by an iron bar by Monsieur Charrot.

[B]

Very nice.

[A]

And then Monsieur Charrot, you used that same iron bar to strangle Monsieur Wilkins. The next day, another dude, Monsieur Pere de Roult.

[B]

Very nice.

[A]

Came along and was like, hey, this Wilkins guy's still alive. And so I'm gonna beat him to death with a glass bottle and strangle him just to make sure that he's dead. The medical examiner found that Shereau had actually killed him. So he was dead. So then the question remains, what happens to Perdereau when he commits this seeming act of murder on a dead body?

[B]

Right. So there's an actual answer for this. And before we get to the answer, we have to talk about a couple of legal things and another case. Okay? So the people who are arguing against Perdereau's guilt, so say his defense team said he cannot be charged with murder or even attempted murder, because murdering Monsieur Wilkins was a legal impossibility. It was impossible for him to complete this act, which means that he can't possibly be guilty of it. And that was apparently a longstanding idea in law. This idea of illegal impossibility and guilt. Right? And so some people said, okay, that's actually a pretty good explanation. I think he might not be guilty. And other people said, wait, wait, wait, forget this legal impossibility mumbo jumbo. What we think is more important is intent. What did he intend to do? He thought that Wilkins was still alive when he tried to murder him. So his intent was to murder this man, therefore he's guilty of attempted murder. And everybody said, what to do? What to do? Sacre bleu.

[A]

That's right. I thought that was sacred Blau. So they said, we must look to see if there's any precedent. That was in the 80s. And I don't know if they actually looked at the American case or not. Cause you can't really set precedent on someone else's country, right?

[B]

No, no, it's not precedent necessarily, but I think, like, it's out there. Sure. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so New York City, 1975. Eleven years before the French incident, as it's known by me. Only there were some dudes drinking in an apartment. Three guys drinking. The guy's apartment was Michael Geller. And another guy, Joe Bush, had been staying there, kind of freeloading, staying with the guy. And they were sitting there getting a little more drunk, obviously some hotheads, hot heads, kind of guys. And Geller started saying, like, hey, dude, you've been crashing here. I need some rent. Why don't you start chipping in on rent? This thing escalated such that Bush eventually shot him three times in the chest and. And the guy falls to the floor. And then the third guy comes in, Melvin Dlugash, and stands over Geller and fires five more shots into his head. Both of these guys are charged, obviously with murder. But once again, Dalugash, his defense was, hey, this guy was already dead. Or at least you can't prove that he was Alive when I shot him five times in the head. He was initially convicted of murder, but it was overturned saying that you can't prove that he was dead, so you can't charge me with murder.

[B]

Right. And I just want to say this seems like a fairly shocking crime, but this took place while there was still lead in America's gasoline.

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, like you said, Dlugash. That's the best way you could say that. Horrible name.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He got off because. Yeah. The prosecution couldn't prove that Geller was still alive. And New York Supreme Court said, no, not so fast. It doesn't matter whether Geller was still alive. You thought he might have still been alive, which is why you shot him five times in the head. And we're going to throw out this idea of legal impossibility and adopt basically a new framework, or at least we're going to take an existing framework and basically make it the framework, which is intent.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That is that, like, what you intended to do determines your guilt or innocence, not the actual fact or possibility of whether you could have done what you were trying to do.

[A]

Right. Specifically, the charge is attempted murder. What you can't do is charge somebody with murder.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because you can't murder a corpse. It's just not scientifically. Forget, legally, it's not scientifically possible to kill something that is already dead. But attempted murder, you certainly can. So the French High Court weighs in on the Pere Dureux case with Monsieur. Man, what a dope.

[B]

No, this is an instant classic because of that.

[A]

And they came to the same conclusion. And they said, all right, you're guilty of attempted murder then. Because our friend the Yanks across the pond, they informed our opinion on this. Perhaps.

[B]

Yeah, perhaps. So there's at least one more that we want to call out. This actually happens with surprising frequency. I would not think that there would be more than one or two cases, but there are some here or there. One that I saw was that it's sometimes used to prosecute cops who shoot people a bunch of times. There was a cop in Toronto who. A guy came out with a knife and he shot him three times, and the guy dropped, and then he went up and shot him a bunch more times when the guy was on the ground. And the jury said, nope, that was illegal. Illegal murder. We can't convict you of murder because this is in the line of duty. And it was the bullets after the shots. After that, we can now convict you of attempted murder.

[A]

Yeah. It also happened to our dear friends in Australia in the case of what looks like a mercy killing in 2014 near one of our favorite cities, Melbourne. Two guys, Daniel Darrington and Rocky Spartacus, Matt Scassi. What a name. They got in a fight, were struggling over a gun. The gun went off. Well, I was about to say killed. It struck Matt Scassi in the head. His body's on the ground twitching around and stuff. And Darrington shoots him. He's like, hey, I don't want this guy. And the quote was, didn't want the bloke suffering and killed him for sure. Then went back, got more bullets, and then shot him again. And he was charged with murder. And the jury said, you know, we can't find him guilty because the prosecution didn't kill. That you intended to kill him when the gun went off to begin with.

[B]

Right. But they did find him guilty of attempted murder because he demonstrated quite clearly that he thought Matt Cassie was still alive and. And shot him to kill him, however merciful the act was supposed to be. And he got convicted of attempted murder for that one.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Had he not tried to be merciful and put Matt's Cassie out of his misery and just the initial shot had killed him, he wouldn't have been convicted of anything at all.

[A]

Yeah, it would have been, I guess, a struggle. Maybe even self defense. Who knows how they would have framed it.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. So I guess that's the. That's the takeaway here. If somebody is potentially already dead, call an ambulance.

[A]

Yeah. This kind of thing, I feel like, is in movies a lot. I feel like it often comes up as, like, to prove your loyalty to the organization, like, someone's in there. Like, I killed most of them. You got to finish them off. So we're both liable or whatever.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I see that a lot in movies. I feel like.

[B]

Sure. Short stuff, I guess. It's out.

[C]

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