Kotaku 
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Denver, 11:01 PM
Sun Nov 22
16 posts in the last 24 hours
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06/16/09
Nevermind that in 5 minutes of Google-ing the Petric family you'll come to find that Mark, Daniel's father, is a minister of the New Life Assembly of God Church in Wellington, Ohio.
Do some research on the church and you'll discover that they are a fundamentalist organization that doesn't believe in traditional medical treatment for disease. They instead rely on prayer and faith healing.
Do some more digging and you'll find that prior to these shootings Daniel spent a year at home, away from his peers, unable to attend school due to a debilitating staph infection he got while on a snowboarding trip.
Daniel spent that year largely in bed, playing videogames, without contact from his friends or even a consultation with a doctor. Staph can be painful, and is easily treated, but because of his family's religious beliefs, he was denied treatment and spent almost a year needlessly suffering from it.
One has to ask: Do you think the duress of carrying a painful skin infection for a year in which Daniel Petric was denied medical treatment and social contact by his parents maybe have something to do with what lead him to matricide?
Also, why in the fuck does a minister keep a loaded 9mm handgun in his home and keep it within reach of his children? Was he just a big Preacher fan? I doubt it...
No, screw all that. It was the Halo he was supposedly not even allowed to play, must've been. Inanimate objects are easier to blame than people.
Don't give this 'issue' lip service without doing the diligence on the background of the story. This kid was definitely driven to murder, but by a videogame?
Personally I think the father is getting off too easy for driving his child crazy.
06/16/09
He is still responsible for his actions, regardless of the catalyst. Of course the father should be put up for reckless endangerment and/or neglect because of his innaction. Religious beliefs shouldn't be an excuse for causing pain and suffering to another unwilling human being.
This is the conversation that should be had though. It should not be about halo, because as you said, it had very little impact in this overall development.
06/16/09
But, "i'm not responsible because of halo?" Heck no, that's completely ridiculous.
06/17/09
I just hate it when the real roots of a problem are neglected for the sake of headline grabbing soundbytes.
I wish Kotaku would do a little more of their due diligence when reporting on these tragic stories. There is a lot more to what lead to this tragedy that a videogame that was only available at retail for less than two months before the violent crime it's being blamed for occurred.
06/16/09
06/16/09
In addition, how absurd is it to grant leniency to someone because of an addiction to begin with? Has anyone ever successfully argued for leniency based on a murderer's meth habit?
06/16/09
If he "didn't think the deaths would be real due to his immersion in Halo 3", then there better be bloddy asscheek prints at the scene, from where he teabagged them.
Ridiculous.
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Don't worry, you'll only be gone for 20 years, you play games all the time.
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Seriously, what's the benefit?
06/16/09
I'm really depressed to think he will EVER see anything other than the inside of his eyelids after this incident. They should at least blind him so he can't play Halo anymore. The weird part is that i'm not generally in favor of the death penalty, much less in cruel and unusual ways but I think they should put this kid in a Hostel style room with all the assorted goodies with his dad while he avenges his wife.
06/16/09
"You're my son," Mark Petric responded. "You're my boy."
Obviously his father wants nothing but to avenge the life of his wife rather than hold on to what little family he has left.
Calm down on the horror movies kid.
06/16/09
Some times I feel like punching babies when I hear how the justice system handles things like this badly.
23 years is nothing.
06/16/09
06/16/09
He's obviously lying.
Halo 3 isn't immersive.
06/16/09
On the bright side, when he gets out of jail and tells people why he was there, he will be ridiculed by his peers for taking Halo 3 so seriously in the same way we would if someone 23 years ago shot their parents over Pac-Man today.
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06/16/09
/sarcasm
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06/16/09
Holy shit, I need some coffee.
And no, I'm not defendening hentai, malfunktionv2, I was only "confused." ;P
06/16/09
06/16/09
On another note, good thing they just removed PS3's from prisons, otherwise they'd just be setting him up for failure, amirite?
06/16/09