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Argument over Diablo loot ends in fatal shooting

cormack12

Gold Member
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/argument-over-diablo-loot-ends-in-fatal-shooting/

On Friday 17 December Joshua G. Spellman of Amboy, WA appeared in Clark County Superior Court accused of second-degree murder (via The Columbian). The 36-year-old Spellman allegedly shot and killed 34-year-old Andrew Dickson, his friend of 26 years, following a heated argument about an incident in a game of Diablo II that the pair were playing.

Dickson apparently became upset when a random player entered the game and 'stole' a valuable piece of loot that the party hadn't collected. The game should have been password protected but wasn't, and the affidavit says Spellman told detectives that Dickson began "yelling, name-calling and cursing at him."

..he told Dickson he needed to calm down or he was going to get shot. Spellman took his gun from beside his computer and went to the main house on the property (both he and Dickson lived in smaller houses on the same land). Per the affidavit: "I asked him why his pistol was next [to] the computer. [Spellman] replied, 'Why not? This is America.'"

Dickson was shot in the torso and was taken to hospital, where he underwent surgery but died from his injuries.
 

daveonezero

Banned
welp that dude is going to jail.

He may have had a case if he didn't say He was going to shoot him and take a warning shot. Other guy attacked him but that doesn't matter.
 

Novacain

Member
There's an element of America that never escaped the wild west valuation of human life; in that it's about as valuable as road kill from that lens.

You really have to be a pathetic human being to first of all get into a heated argument over a game, and second shoot someone over a verbal disagreement about said videogame.

Sad waste of human life all around.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
A crime that was done due to sheer stupidity of humanity, and the scapegoat will most likely be the gun.
Too bad there wasn't a good guy with a gun in the room...amirite?

Not sure what's worse, getting shot over a video game, or being the one that shoots someone over a video game. I feel like being the victim of such an incident has to be doubly-insulting.
 
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haxan7

Banned
That sucks. Imagine murdering your friend over pixels. These things are always so much worse than just reading about them conveys. Imagine the blood, the panic, the pain, knowing you're going to die.

This is the guy:
1010500296-12-18-Murder-first-ap_01.jpg
 
We live in a world where mental illness is treated with slips of paper and apathy instead of care and attention. Clearly this kid needed the latter and was likely given the former.

Depressed? Take some pills. Angry? Take some pills? Both? Take more pills. Doc gets his kickback and retires to the golf course.
 
This is why you don't devote 1000s of hours to a video game that has loot.

Can't wait for the guy to say "If the game had the loot as a microtransaction i wouldn't have killed him!"

Activisions new slogan "Saving lives by providing microtransactions since 2006"
 
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Valt7786

Member
Cousin walked in on his life-long best friend banging his wife. That might be worth some jailtime to sort out. But gaming loot?
I can't see how anything is worth jailtime tbh. The thought alone of being sent to prison scares the shit out of me, think i'd rather just die.
 
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