Police Attempt to Link Vicious Murder to D&D

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Police Attempt to Link Vicious Murder to D&D


Detectives investigating the rape and murder of a mentally-handicapped girl "aren't blaming a game" but have nonetheless suggested that the killer may have been "acting out a violent fantasy from Dungeons & Dragons [http://www.wizards.com/DND/]."

A bit of background: Last week, 18-year-old Tyler Wolfegang Savage killed and sexually assaulted his mentally-disabled 16-year-old neighbor, Kimberly "Kimmie" Daily, who had left her home in Puyallup to go visit a friend. Savage confessed to the crime and led police to the body, and also told them that after the murder, he went to a friend's house and played Dungeons & Dragons Online [http://www.ddo.com/] "to forget."

It's an awfully thin connection to gaming, certainly not enough to warrant mention on a site like this, but as sometimes happens in such cases, the police got a whiff of an easy explanation and have apparently decided to run with it. Although Savage said he played the game after committing the crime, presumably as a distraction from the horror of what he'd done, police are now looking into whether the game "somehow became his point of reference on reality."

"Savage's previously clean record has detectives wondering what set him off to allegedly murder a girl with mental disabilities," according to a Seattle PI [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/425695_murder25.html] report. "One theory is something Savage told them about: His passion for video games, and how they help him cope." The report further noted that while investigators aren't placing the blame for the attack on videogames, they are working with an expert in sexually violent fantasies "to explore the videogame motive."

"The defendant admitted some kind of connection between the murder and the videogame," Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said. "I'm not clear at this point what exactly that connection is. The defendant himself said he went to play videogames to forget."

There's probably some clinical explanation for how a videogame could both inspire a vicious murder and help the perpetrator forget about it, but Savage gave no indication that the game was anything more than a way to block out the memory of his horrific crime, much the way other people might get drunk out of their heads or immerse themselves in some other activity. Even his lawyer called the videogame link "pure speculation and a rush to judgment." But people like easy answers and in the eyes of the police, at least, it looks like videogames are still a good place to find them.

via: GamePolitics [http://gamepolitics.com/2010/08/26/police-amp-media-now-playing-dampd-connection-murder]


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silver wolf009

[[NULL]]
Jan 23, 2010
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Oh god its mazes and monsters!! kill that stupid movie with fire!...

Wait, this is for real?

Oh humanity your stupidity confuses and depresses me even to this day.
 

BreakfastMan

Scandinavian Jawbreaker
Jul 22, 2010
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Oh my goodness gracious, not this AGAIN! I thought blaming crimes on video-games died in the early 2000's. They are now combining D&D and video-games into one super scape-goat that can cover any crime. *sighs*
 

imnot

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Apr 23, 2010
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*facepalm*

seriously, gah. I'm off to the 'oh for christ's sake' room.
 

Loonerinoes

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Apr 9, 2009
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I wonder how long it'll take for people to realize that anything can be used as an escape from what someone has done and that such people really don't deserve pity while the object, with which they escaped reality, gets the scorn.

Even in our country, where alcoholism for example is rampant, I don't blame alcohol. I blame the alcoholics who cause our domestic abuse cases to go skyhigh.
 

Vie

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Nov 18, 2009
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How can you claim you "aren't blaming a game" if your trying to "to explore the videogame motive."

You must at least be attributing blame to it in order to consider it a motive.
 

XJ-0461

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Mar 9, 2009
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I thought most people gave up the whole "Dungeons and Dragons is making our kids evil" thing before I was born (I'm 17 BTW).

While this is a terrible, terrible crime, I seriously doubt that games had any connections to it other than him trying to forget about it.
 

mental_looney

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Apr 29, 2008
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As far as it seems from reports they aren't trying to link the actual murder to the game as he admitted he only went to play the game to foget after doing it but to look at his activity for clues to his mental state before the act, if he really is disturbed or worse what he does in D&D isn't really going to matter. It's never the gameplay they look at the actual chat will give them far more information about him as a person not just a D&D player.
 

manythings

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Nov 7, 2009
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Well if I lived there I would move immediately since it is clear the cops are out to find the quickest explanation they can.
 

Sworm

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Mar 15, 2010
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they are working with an expert in sexually violent fantasies
okay.... WHAT-THE-FUCK? that's just... I...

And I sure hope cops never make a connection between a crime (that I hope I ll never commit) and my DnD alter-egos...

That REALLY can't end well...
 

Jaeriko

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May 29, 2010
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Calm down people. They didn't say they were blaming it, they said there was a connection to it.

If the kid went straight to D&D after killing someone, then yeah, I would take a look at the connection too if I was a police officer on the case. It could be that the child has trouble distancing themselves from the fantasy, and those types of angles need to be covered or the child could end up living with an undiagnosed mental problem and not receiving the help he needs.
 

hecticpicnic

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Jul 27, 2010
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this is like if he said he watched TV after, its got nothing to do with it
but about the guy i don't think D&D told him to kill the girl,but a guy who seems insane shouldn't go playing D&D it might actually tell him to kill someone(well if not that then maybe,the evil TV)
 
Feb 13, 2008
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/sigh

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

I thought we'd left this behind in the 80s.
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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Wait a second, did they not just say that he used video games "to cope"?
Why aren't they looking into why he had to "cope" with anything?!

Fucking Hell...
 

infinity_turtles

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Apr 17, 2010
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Eh, this just seems like a case of a bad tag line. They're looking at a murderers hobbies and how he approaches them to determine his mental state.
 

ShadowsofHope

Outsider
Nov 1, 2009
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"The report further noted that while investigators aren't placing the blame for the attack on videogames, they are working with an expert in sexually violent fantasies "to explore the videogame motive."

In other words.. Yes, yes they are blaming video games. Again.
 

Furious Styles

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Jul 10, 2010
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Tyler Wolfgang Savage? Someone with that name was always going to kill something.

Clearly just a nutjob, not attributable to D&D so much as his being a psychopath.

also, what's with the picture of tom hanks?
 

Danpascooch

Zombie Specialist
Apr 16, 2009
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It's bad enough to link crime to videogames, but this is so flimsy it's absolutely rediculous.

It's like saying "After the murder, I went out for a bit of fresh air to clear my head" and the police immediately proclaim, AH HA! So it's all AIR's FAULT!

QUICK EVERYONE! WE NEED MAKE AIR ILLEGAL!