New angle to Manhunt murder
p2pnet.net News:- A Reader’s Write here links to a story in Britain’s The Register which in turn leads to a report in GamesIndustry.biz which raises serious questions about who owned the Manhunt game linked to a murder in the UK – the victim or his alleged killer?
Fourteen-year-old 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah was said to have been brutally slain by his friend, Warren Le Blanc, 17.
Pakeerah’s parents blame the tragedy on Manhunt, a sadistic Rockstar games Sony Playstation 2 production in which the player ‘takes over’ death row inmate James Earl Cash and then goes on a bloody rampage of mayhem and murder.
“The video game was not found in Warren LeBlanc’s room, it was found in Stefan Pakeerah’s room,” a police spokesperson is quoted as saying in GamesIndustry, going on:
“Leicestershire Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was robbery.”
The, “tabloid press, in particular the extremist right-wing Daily Mail newspaper, have already been heavily criticised for ignoring the police reports and prosecution statements which gave the motive for the murder as robbery, with LeBlanc killing his younger friend in order to pay back a drugs-related debt,” says the story.
“Few tabloid stories made any mention of the drugs angle.
“The news will also pour cold water on the intentions of American lawyer Jack Thompson, infamous for his chasing of cases relating to what he judges to be immoral media. Thompson apparently plans to bring a major lawsuit on behalf of the Pakeerah family against Rockstar; the revelation that the game belonged to their son, not to the killer, may well mean that this case is quietly dropped.”
Outlaw.com says the murdered boy’s parents hired Thompson, “a crusader against violent entertainment” to sue Sony Computer Entertainment and the games company behind Manhunt for £50 million (close to $100 million) for wrongful death.
Stay tuned.
