A 17-year-old boy is on trial in an Ohio courtroom for matricide, allegedly shooting and killing his mother and wounding his father after they banned him from playing the first-person shooter video game Halo 3.
From The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
In September 2007, Daniel [Petric], then 16, had sneaked out of his bedroom window to purchase the game at a store against his father’s orders. When he returned home, his parents caught him with the game and took it from him. His father, Mark, a minister at New Life Assembly of God in Wellington, put the game in a lockbox in a closet where he also kept a 9mm handgun, according to prosecutors.
About a month later, on Oct. 20, 2007, Daniel used his father’s key to open the lockbox and remove the gun and the game. The boy shot his parents, killing his mother and gravely wounding his father. As his father lay wounded, Daniel tried to place the gun in his father’s hand.
Defense attorneys are basing Daniel Petric’s defense on video game addiction:
Holly Petric, Daniel’s… sister, said her brother became obsessed with video games because of a back injury which led to a staph infection that limited his physical activity. Daniel’s other family members have also testified that the infection was so severe that any extreme physical activity could have caused his spine to snap, leaving him paralyzed….
“He’d just play (video games) nonstop whenever he could,” Holly Petric said….
[Daniel’s friend] Jon [Johnson] said that while he liked video games, Daniel was addicted, even going so far as to push his friends to play the games when they wanted to do something else.
The case is expected to wrap up today. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has additional coverage.:
Petric’s attorney argued this morning that his client should be found not guilty by reason of insanity in part because the 17-year-old was obsessed with the video game.
Attorney James Kersey said Daniel, who is being tried as an adult, went looking for the sci-fi video game, not his father’s 9mm handgun.
Via GamePolitics.