Teenager Who Killed Parents Over Halo 3 Found Guilty

A teenager who claimed that his addiction to Halo 3 caused him to shoot and kill his mother and wound his father has been convicted of the crime.

Daniel Petric was 16 years old at the time of the murder, which reportedly resulted from a dispute over his parents' refusal to let him play Halo 3. The teen bought the game anyway and was caught trying to sneak it into the house; his parents took it away from him and put it into a lock-box in their closet, in which they also kept a 9 mm handgun. According to prosecutors, Petric later went to the box, retrieved both the game and the gun and then shot his mother and father in the head. He then tried to blame his father for the shooting by pressing the gun into his hand and telling his sister and brother-in-law, who arrived at the house shortly after the shooting, that the elder Petric had pulled the trigger; his father ultimately survived but his mother died of her injuries.

At the trial, Petric's defense attorneys admitted their client had shot his parents but claimed that a bad snowboarding accident a year prior had left him effectively disabled and stuck at home with nothing to do but watch television and play videogames, and that his resulting "videogame addiction" and young age diminished his responsibility for the crime.

But earlier today, Lorain County Judge James Burge rejected the claim, saying that videogame addiction isn't a valid defense and also noting that there was evidence of premeditation in the killing. Petric was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated attempted murder and other charges, and now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. No sentencing date has been set.

Source: Associated Press, via GamePolitics

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Let this be a lesson that blaming video games won't work... although it unfortunately probably won't deter lawyers from trying it anyway. *sigh*

Save me Jack Thompson you are my only hope!

Seriously where is Jack Thompson to save the day...oh wait he got disbarred tough shit for this retard.

Lvl 64 Klutz:
Let this be a lesson that blaming video games won't work... although it unfortunately probably won't deter lawyers from trying it anyway. *sigh*

You took the words right out of my mouth. Unfortunately.

old news mate..

Lets face it, the game had nothing to do with it. The guy was just a delusional asshole.

I Agree with the guy above

Good, glad to this is ass clown got what he had coming for him for his crimes and trying to use a lame excuse to try and get out of it.

The bastard deserved it.

Video games are indeed addictive, but not that bloody addictive. Jesus christ, I'm tired of this defense. Its unreasonable.

this psycho deserves to be tortured, raped, burnt and killed....I just don't get how can you dare to even shoot your parents and kill your mother over a game...

Solo508:
Lets face it, the game had nothing to do with it. The guy was just a delusional asshole.

I don't know who feels worse about it now, himself, or his father?. His guilt or his fathers pain of having lost both his son and his wife?.

I hope I never go through that, or anyone else for that matter.

Ouch, no matter what he did, I feel bad for the kid.

Solo508:
Lets face it, the game had nothing to do with it. The guy was just a delusional asshole.

Thats what I started to think about halfway down. Unfortunatly, there are bound to be parents that will see the title and assume the game made him do it.

Oh, god it's a bad day for this sort of thing. only an hour ago I saw that post on a Chinese teenager who swallowed saw blades. I admit violent video games make you more prone to violent acts. (no, really. I tend to poke my sister a lot harder when I lose at Mariokart than when I lose at poker)

stupid people playing games and not being able to distinguish the difference between real violence and video game violence. I remember when i was 13, i wanted to rent god of war, my mother knew that i knew the difference and that i was not going to go swinging knives around on strings just because i played it. If you want to play video games you should have to have a certain IQ to play, not just a certain age.

Solo508:
Lets face it, the game had nothing to do with it. The guy was just a delusional asshole.

I completely agree with you! people tend to immediately blame video games for anything. Yet they don't look at other things, such as family relationship, mental state, environment, if the person is a dickhead! I mean japan has a crap load more video games than America and yet Japan's crime rate is low compared to America's. (No insult implied to any Americans since I'm also one)

My client was injured in a snowboarding accident, really bored at home, wanted to play Halo 3, Mom and Dad said no, so he shot them in the face. Clearly this is not the fault of my client due to the aforementioned reasons.

Did that really come out of someone's mouth? How long is law school again? 3 weeks?

thats just plane goodness

So so true

Padfoot13:
stupid people playing games and not being able to distinguish the difference between real violence and video game violence. I remember when i was 13, i wanted to rent god of war, my mother knew that i knew the difference and that i was not going to go swinging knives around on strings just because i played it. If you want to play video games you should have to have a certain IQ to play, not just a certain age.

So so true.

That kid has freaky "dead" eyes...

Wouldn't want to run into him... anywhere.

Solo508:
Lets face it, the game had nothing to do with it. The guy was just a delusional asshole.

couldn't have said it any other way, but also, those parents must have been way to overly protective to not let him get halo 3, first off halo 3 woulda been rated T if not for the live and the fact that the other games of the series were M, second off, he's fucking 16, my 8 year old neighbor plays freakin Fallout 3 and and the GoW series, as well as Halo 3 like there's no tommorow

Bad Parenting is all I can say. If a kid is a whack job, its the parents fault.

PedroSteckecilo:
That kid has freaky "dead" eyes...

Wouldn't want to run into him... anywhere.

Yeah, I wonder why...
He has just been sentenced to jail for life because he killed his mother.
And what the fuck is up with everyone saying that he deserved it? He is clearly a complete basket case, they should send him to a mental institute, not jail.

k3v1n:
this psycho deserves to be tortured, raped, burnt and killed....I just don't get how can you dare to even shoot your parents and kill your mother over a game...

God, some people are insensitive.

I understand feeling bad for the father and sister because that's got to be difficult, but I really have no sympathy for this kid. "Sick," isn't the right word, but it's the first that comes to mind.

I can't muster up the slightest shred of sympathy for this bastard, blaming video games for influencing a kid who quite clearly has mental issues just doesn't work, but rather than jail, he should rot in a mental institution for a whole, padded cell, straitjacket, the works, it's sick what he did, but throwing the basketcase in prison will do no good, if anything, it'll just drive him more insane than he already is.

Malygris:

At the trial, Petric's defense attorneys admitted their client had shot his parents but claimed that a bad snowboarding accident a year prior had left him effectively disabled and stuck at home with nothing to do but watch television and play videogames, and that his resulting "videogame addiction" and young age diminished his responsibility for the crime.

Seriously, what the fuck? You shoot someone in the head, you are responsible for their death! What kind of twisted moral compass are today's lawyers following?

Today's lawyers make Atticus sad.

Only in america...

I'm spotting a little inconsistency here...
The kid claims that his addiction to Halo 3 was the problem, yet the story goes on to say they wouldn't let him buy it, and locked it away when he smuggled it home.

By my reasoning this means he either:
a) Isn't telling the whole story,
b) Played the game at a friend's house (but he's been allegedly stuck at home, according to his lawyer),
c) Been told to blame it on video game addiction since it's an easy defense, or
d) All of the above.

I'm inclined to go "d", and that the whole "stuck at home" thing is rubbish. After all, why was he out and about buying games then?

Wait wait, the father survived being shot in the head? And the guy still used that story?!

Perhaps he thought his parents were the covenant.

ColdStorage:

I hope I never go through that, or anyone else for that matter.

When I read stories like these, I pray that it has something to do with education. That somewhere along the line, the parents went wrong and raised a kid that would come to shoot them at age 16.
I hope that your kid losing it and trying to kill you is not something that can happen to anybody. That losing touch with your kid up to the point to having him point a gun at your face is not something that can just happen, no matter how well you tried to raise him.

Please god, let it be so.

Don't sneak games into the household. Let your children play their games without getting them addicted. Don't punish them for playing their games. If your children die from the games, don't even fucking think about blaming the games because it's just wrong.