Whenever I think of the original film, this is the scene that always pops into my head because it's so shocking. I mean, shooting an innocent girl in the chest. That's pretty messed up.
This one's already solved, but the discussion brought to mind the shooting of the singing-telegraph girl in
Clue, which took me totally by surprise and got me to laugh out loud for much the same reasons.
While I, too, know that the original problem has been solved, I, too, would like to comment on the original film. While the girl's death is the first unexpected death in the film, it is not last. Carpenter is good at playing with the audience's expectations. Just when you expect a character in the film to survive, Carpenter unexpectedly kills off the character. And that is good film making on Carpenter's part.