Video games just hit the news again… no… this isn’t about sales.
An Ohio teenager just murdered his mom and wounded his father after they took away his Halo 3 game. Wow. I’m gonna think twice about taking my 15-year-old’s games away next time!
AP reports:
Although a teenager’s obsession with a violent video game may have warped his sense of reality, the boy is guilty of murdering his mother and wounding his father after they took “Halo 3″ away from him, a judge ruled Monday.
“I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever,” Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said.
Nonetheless, Burge rejected the defense attorneys’ argument that Petric, 17, was not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defense didn’t contest that Petric shot his parents in October 2007 after they took the game away from him, but insisted that the teen’s youth and addiction made him less responsible.
Petric may have been addicted, but the evidence also showed he planned the crime for weeks, said Burge, who found the teenager guilty of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and other charges.
Yikes!
The entire article here.
(ht to KJ)
This actually happened in the town just south of mine. Some of the people from my church knew the family personally (the father is a pastor), and it hit a lot of them heavily. The good part of the story? After regaining consciousness in the hospital and discovering the truth of the matter (and that his wife was dead), the father immediately forgave his son. Wow. This really was a tragedy (especially over something so trivial as video games), but I’m sure at least one unbeliever came to know Christ through the testimony of that pastor.