Arrest in Virtual Homicide Case

Posted by ScuzzBuster

October 23, 2008

I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home tonight. We ordered a pizza and tuned our Digital Cable Box to the news channel that’s going to give us the election coverage with the slant I like. I had no intention of writing a single word.
Stupid me, I fired up the laptop to flip through the various electoral polls for the day but was ambushed with this Associate Press Headline:

“Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby”

Sonuvabitch. No way I can let that go without comment.

Quoting the AP article:

“A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband’s digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.”

What? Wasn’t this already covered in various South Park episodes?

Apparently, these people had been involved with some Sims or WOW type RPG online game called Maple Story. The article continues in somewhat of a confusing fashion never really being crystal clear about her relationship to this man, but apparently they were co-workers in real life and married online.

After some sort of virtual divorce she hacked into his account and murdered him.
As the AP article recounts

“The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo…
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.”

Hmmm. I’m fairly certain that there was very little “real world” about these people’s lives. The charge was for hacking, I guess, not actually “virtual murder” which apparently is still legal.

I could probably start on a 1500 word tirade about this, but I think it speaks for itself. Here we have not only these virtual game players losing their grip with reality, but law enforcement as well.

This is not an isolated incident. The article goes on to mention that previously a 16 year old boy had been arrested for swindling $360,000 “virtual” dollars from another player in another virtual role-playing game.

I recall when I was in college when the internet began to explode we speculated that some day we could work from home, shop from home, and have all of our social interactions from home. A bleak world where you’d never have to leave your house.

Hell, now you can do all that as well as commit all your crimes without getting up from your desk chair.

I guess the only real justice in this would be if this woman and the boy were given their trials on the internet and sentenced to home detention with the restrictive ankle bracelets.

I’d close this by saying “get a fucking grip.” However, I have no idea who needs to hear it the most.

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