Video games are often thought to be relatively harmless, but in reality, they can be deadly. Video games – especially the violent ones – often make people believe they are in the reality they spend so much time playing a part of. Sometimes, this makes people do things they normally would not do otherwise. Check out eight of the saddest stories of deaths caused by video games below.
Number Eight: Daniel Petric. Daniel Petric was 16 years old when he shot both of his parents because of Halo 3. His parents had locked the game in a safe after a disagreement, and he broke into the safe. He grabbed a gun next to the game in the safe and shot both his parents, killing his mom and critically injuring his dad. He is now serving life in prison.
Number Seven: DotA Addict. One boy murdered his grandmother after she interrupted his game of DotA. She began to scold him and told him to stop playing, and he allegedly then blacked out and beat his grandmother to death.
Number Six: Lee Seung Seop. Lee Seung Seop was truly a StarCraft addict. In fact, Seop was so addicted that he would often play it for 14 to 18 hours at a time. He even lost his job and girlfriend because of StarCraft. One night, he decided to start a 50-hour long session, and when he finished, he died from exhaustion and dehydration.
Number Five: Warren LeBlanc. Warren Leblanc is serving life in prison for killing one of his “friends” due to a video game. In an effort to emulate a murder scene in the game Manhunt, Leblanc lured a friend into a park and bludgeoned and stabbed him until he died.
Number Four: Grandma Theft Auto. One unnamed 8-year-old boy shot and killed his grandmother just minutes after he started playing Grand Theft Auto. According to the police, the boy and his grandmother had a normal and loving relationship and even shared the same bedroom, so police are quite certain it was the game that caused him to kill her.
Number Three: Devin Moore. Devin Moore was 18 years old when he was arrested for actual grand theft auto in 2003. However, he channeled the Grand Theft Auto video game even more when he stole a gun off of one of the police officers, shot them, and stole a police car. He was quoted as saying “Life is a video game. You’ve got to die sometime.” He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Number Two: DotA Addict II. An 11-year-old Philippine boy was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old who accused him of hacking into his DotA account. The 16-year-old took him to a construction site and killed him by slamming his head against the wall and stabbing him over 40 times.
Number One: Tyrone Spellman. Finally, one of the saddest stories of deaths caused by video games is that of Tyrone Spellman. Spellman was in the middle of a game of Ghost Recon when his 17-month-old daughter crawled over his Xbox and broke it. In a fit of rage, Spellman beat his daughter to death, crushing her skull in the process.
