Posted on 01/31/2012 5:07:01 PM PST by OKSooner
TULSA, Oklahoma - An autopsy reveals a strange but true case of a man dead after shooting himself four times in the head.
Police say Terrence Moses kidnapped his ex-wife last Wednesday, then got into an eight-hour standoff with Tulsa police.
The Special Operations Team rescued the woman, but then say they found Moses dead.
Police realize how unbelievable it sounds that a man could shoot himself four times in the head, but they say the crime scene evidence proves that's exactly what happened.
Police say Terrance Moses got into an argument with his ex-wife last Wednesday, and she later told her family he was holding her at gunpoint.
Officers found them at 2 a.m. on Thursday in his condo at the Brandy Chase Condominiums near 67th and Peoria.
After hours of negotiations, SOT members made entry. They heard a woman screaming and gunshots, then saw her coming down the stairs and rescued her.
01/26/2012 Related Story: Tulsa Police: Standoff Over, Suspect Found Dead Inside Condo
The police department says no officers returned fire because they couldn't see who was shooting a floor above them.
"I can't think of anything worse than when a suspect is above them in an enclosed area," said Tulsa Police Sergeant Dave Walker.
Police sent in a robot around 10:30 a.m. and cameras showed Moses was dead. He had one shot to the chest and four to the head.
Police say the ex-wife might've been trying to wrestle the gun away from Moses when he accidentally shot himself in the chest. As for the next four shots, they say he did those on his own.
Police say he first shot himself under the chin. That bullet exited his face and went into the ceiling. They say he did that twice more with the same result. Then a fourth shot entered his neck, severed his spinal cord and killed him.
"I know it's kind of unusual that we say somebody committed suicide, killed himself by shooting himself four times in the head. I would wince at that too, but if you look at it, line up the holes where he was shot, you can see how that happened," Walker said.
Sergeant Walker says Moses had a Walther 380 and a Springfield Armory .40 caliber and fired them both. Tulsa officers carry .40 caliber Glocks. Sergeant Walker says all Moses' shots were accounted for.
"There's really nothing to hide in this whole thing. We wouldn't hide anything anyway. It's a sad story for him, sad for somebody's life to end that way, but it happens," Walker said.
The medical examiner says Moses died from gunshot wounds but hasn't ruled it suicide yet. They are doing additional testing and measuring plus any toxicology reports would take weeks to get back.
Police say Moses' ex-wife has been interviewed and is not a suspect of any kind in this case.
We enter this into the defense, your honor.
Perhaps my most favorite Gahan Wilson cartoon: a meat grinder clamped on the edge of a table with gore below and just an arm sticking up from the feed hopper, bent back down at the elbow, ripping the handle and two detective types standing there delivering the punchline.
Damned over-achiever.
He must have terrible aim.
One of my nieces (who is a respiratory therapist) told me of the case in which this teenage boy placed a 12-gauge under his chin and pulled the trigger. The shot removed his face but didn't kill him. Now, he is going to spend the next 50-60 years in a hospital, with no eyes, no mouth (they made one for him), etc.
If he really wanted to kill himself, he should have placed the barrel in his mouth and aimed slightly downard to destroy the reptilian brain. Works every time.
4 times? In the head?
Uh-huh...sounds like a case of Arkancide.
Actually, I used to know a guy in AA who stuck a 12 gauge in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and survived. Also stopped drinking.
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Many would say he was normal; it just comes from living in Tulsa!
Were they all different calibre?
If he stuck a shotgun in his mouth and it didnt kill him his mouth probably leaked out everything he tried to drink.
He probably stopped eating too.LOL
Must have had a big head and a very small brain.
The police have nothing to hide in this case according to sergeant Walker. I guess they only hide things in other cases. The more the sergeant talks the more suspicious he makes me.
I can understand how the ex-wife would see it that way, and I am glad that the police accept her account at face value. I'm just glad he didn't have to reload and shoot himself in the head six more times, although I would believe that story too with a kidnapping.
He kept saying, “Go DOWN, Moses!”
But hey, you can buy the shorter model and save a couple bucks.
i guess my definition of rescue and theirs, is vastly different...
Just for general knowledge: Never try suicide by shooting yourself under the chin. Knew of one case where a guy shot off half his face with a shotgun under his chin—he lived, but spent the rest of his life eating thru a tube in his stomach. Take it from an ex-cop: If you want to really do it “eat your gun”—ie, put barrel in mouth facing slightly upward.
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