The reason the teen picked WoW was because it was apparently something he could not say over MSN chat. The teen confessed to killing Kim. Not showing any remorse, he added that committing the brutal murder did not feel like what he thought it would feel like.
The attack was pre-planned through online chats and text messaging, with both teens devising code words and brainstorming on how they’d carry out the murder. Proctor was picked because she was, according to one of the teens, “an easy target”. The Vancouver Sun has a detailed timeline of the events that transpired.
Pundits are looking for explanations, and video games are an easy way to explain the horrific crime. “You don’t know which aggressive kid is going to take the fantasies of video games and try them out in reality,” Bonnie Leadbeater, a psychology professor at the University of Victoria, tells CTV News. “You just can’t predict those very rare occurrences.”
The Ottawa Citizen’s reporting opens with this sentence, “One of the teens who raped and killed 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor was a self-described ‘nihilistic atheist’ whose father was a convicted criminal, while the other was an avid gamer who lived with his parents.” Imagine that, a teenager who was an avid gamer and who lived with his parents? That sounds incredibly normal.
What these teenagers did, however, wasn’t. There are deeper, more troubling issues here at work than playing video games. One of the teens said he had dreamed of killing someone since he was young.
The two teenage boys are in a B.C. courtroom, where they are on trial for the crime. If they are sentenced as adults, they could get life. If they are sentenced as minors, they would get 10 years in prison.
Pic via Vancouver Sun
Stefan
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 2:22 PMThis is absoloutley sick, some people are just not meant to be alive, these two kids should get life for sure.
Eddy
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 8:33 AMDitto
Thomas Ingram
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 2:30 PMThat’s sick. It’s not games fault, and atheism has nothing to do with it. They’re just wrong in the head.
Also, spelling error: “where they are on trail for the crime”
alinos
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:12 PMyou can’t say atheism has nothing to do with it
one of the advantages to atheism is that theres no heaven and hell and therefore your not gonna be sentenced to fire and brimstone
that said though religion is just as much a cause for murder tho. “im doing gods work” “they were sinners” so on and so forth
your religion can always contribute but rarely is it the deciding factor in why these things happen
just the same as if it wasn’t videogames they were picking on it would be something else(most likely oh he was addicted to the internetz)
PS im an atheist through and through
Sam Sweeney
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 5:37 PMEven if he was not an atheist, not every religion has a hell.
Your religion does not define who you are or what you think but instead you define what your religion is because of how you think. If not, that’s normally called a cult.
Aaron
Monday, November 1, 2010 at 1:33 PMThat logic makes no sense, an atheist should value life, there own and others, far more than someone who believes in an after life.
If you don’t believe in an afterlife or reincarnation aren’t you going to treat life as more valuable if its all you get?
Then only appropriate label for this pair is sociopath.
Jon
Monday, November 1, 2010 at 7:14 PMdude – your logic makes no sense. The two greatest mass murderers in history – Stalin and Mao – were atheists. They didn’t value life in general, save their own.
A person’s religion or areligion is irrelevant, at the end of the day it is the individual who is the beginning and end.
Hoang
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 1:24 PMThey are murderers in most people’s eyes and in hindsight. Stalin and Mao thought _they_ were making a better world, sacrifices were needed to be made so that the greater could benefit. Atheism had nothing to do with why they killed so many.
Alastair
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 9:52 AMAtheism, probably not; though a solid belief in nihilism can over-ride everything – not an easy way to live, not that we have choices in our beliefs.
Ben
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:07 PM“You don’t know which aggressive kid is going to take the fantasies of video games and try them out in reality,”
So we know they play wow… Which is great for planning out murder fantansies.
Do these people ever bother looking that the games these people are playing? Or do they just feel they only need to mention them if it promotes their theories?
I’m waiting for someone blame Tetris or Space invaders next…
Ben
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:17 PMI hope they burn. Pun intended.
TadMod
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:27 PMHmmm, lets think this through…
I am:
– An Atheist
– A Gamer
– Living with my parents
Therefore, I expect that I will rape/murder someone in the near future. GO SCIENCE!
But seriously? People who are inclined to real-world violence have nothing to do with people who play games. Sometimes they overlap, but that isn’t the vast majority of us…
Oh well, haters gonna hate…
Nicholas La Sala
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:33 PMthey deserve to rot in prison for the rest f their lives
Dunnowhathuh
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:52 PMIt’s a wonder what the hell goes on in the mind of some people somtimes. Let those two and all others like them rot away in a prison cell for the rest of their lives.
Raif
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 4:46 PMI hope they get completely f’d up in jail, seriously… Both these teenagers should should go through the same pain as Proctor did, only worse. I have no remorse for these people and it seems like their friends and family don’t either.
Gibbo Gibbleton
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 5:02 PM“You don’t know which aggressive kid is going to take the fantasies of video games and try them out in reality.”
Oh look another talking head, what the hell is wrong with people?
These kids were fucked up, they should be punished to the full extent of the law. Don’t sit there and claim plainly that these kids were acting out a video game fantasy because you have absolutely no proof what-so-ever they were doing so. You only know that they communicated through a videogame, a common channel for anyone of that age.
An academic professor should know better and if they don’t they should be stripped of their credentials.
Fearmongering jackasses, I bet they had to call up 40 different shrinks to get a quote like that they wanted to.
AmbroseIV
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 8:48 PMAgain, they detract from the seriousness of a terrible incident and the credibility of a few professionals (who I’m sure are otherwise competent) with the videogame BS.
These guys should be tried as adults, else they’re out in 10 years time and noone knows who they are, and they should rot.
CloneTrooper
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 12:43 AMKeep telling people, Hitler played too much Civilization/Total War.
I guess its still too difficult to believe that some people are just fucked regardless of how many games they play and how much.
I’m an avid gamer who lives with his parents…should I turn myself into the police because I’m obviously certain to murder someone in the future?
Fucking mainstream media.
Leeroy
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 12:45 PMDid she drop any good loot?
Sam Trotter
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 12:53 PMWow…. sick indeed. I’d love to just be able to watch/read a news report and hear ‘avid gamer’ in relation to whatever and just assume it was a a label for what a person was, not a biased, sensationalised, undertone used by news reporters/stations to try and make anything out of nothing. The scary part is, anyone that avidly follows a today/tonight or aca type show believes this tripe!! One day the stigma will be lifted…
From,
An atheist gamer :)
Colin
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 1:11 PMI think the media should’ve placed far less emphasis on gaming and atheism in this article, and instead focused on why this teenager wanted to murder someone since they were really young. I’m not going into detailed criminal psychology, but gaming and atheism is not a trigger for committing murder. I am an atheist gamer, and surprise-surprise, I have no desire to kill people. There’s far more to this story. The fact that one parent was a criminal is a lead I’d follow up.
David
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 4:59 PMWow, maybe it’s only people who feel strongly about things that comment but you guys are big into the revenge thing huh?
I’m in no way excusing what these kids did but you should maybe try to understand the situation before calling for blood. Sounds to me like there is some serious psychological issues going on.
Granted having psychological issues shouldn’t stop the law from punishing them, what point does it serve to leave them in a prison cell? Better to rehabilitate and get them trying to pay back what they took.