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Xbox rage child killer convicted of third-degree murder
Tyrone Spellman was found guilty yesterday of third-degree murder for killing his 17-month-old daughter in 2006 after she knocked over his Xbox. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the jury reached the verdict after eight hours, adding that Spellman faces 23.5 to 47 years in prison. He has three prior drug convictions.Apparently, after impulsively beating his daughter to death, Spellman propped the dead child by some barbells in order to mask the death as an accident in the eyes of arriving EMTs. In a post-verdict conversation, Prosecutor James Berardinelli was told by the forewoman that the jury believed Spellman acted "in a rage" but didn't mean to kill the child.
Study: Evidence low that video games cause violence
A Texas A&M researcher sent GamePolitics a study he recently completed showing little evidence linking violent video games and violent behavior. Christopher Ferguson, a Ph.D faculty member at the university's department of behavioral, applied sciences and criminal justice, conducted a "meta-analysis" of studies associating violent video game exposure with aggressive behaviors. A look at the overall result of studies in the field showed violent video games increase people's aggressive thoughts, not necessarily action.That's like if you watch a comedy it increases funny thoughts, or after watching a melodrama it increases Japanese RPG thoughts. For the violent game studies to have some validity, the key is for a study to prove that violent video games don't just cause thoughts of violence, but violence itself.
'Xbox Killers' get death
Jerone Hunter, 20, and Troy Victorino, 29, were sentenced to death yesterday in the murders of six people in 2004. The killings occurred after Victorino, who was kicked out of a house that he'd been squatting in, returned with Hunter to retrieve his Xbox and other belongings -- but the mainstream media mostly picked up on the Xbox stuff.The murders were vicious, with blood being found on the floors, ceilings and walls. The victims were not only bludgeoned to death, but were mutilated after.In related blame-it-on-video-games news, last week 25-year-old Tyrone Spellman (pictured) killed his daughter after she yanked the cords on the console he was playing. According to Mia Turman, the dead child's mother, "the system - the box itself - fell" so he "hit her in the face twice." Turman also says that Spellman "slung" the child over a chair.Turman is currently eight-months pregnant with Spellman's second child.
