The year 1974 is pretty close to 1973, so it is worth noting one other thing that helped scare adults and fule the Satanic Panic. By way of backstory, in 1971, Guidon Games was founded. This company developed the game called…

…Chainmail. Yes, it probably looks a little familiar. In 1974, Tactical Studies Rules, Inc, published a similar game named Dungeons & Dragons. This game would go on to prove immensely popular and is still going strong today.

Most people know that it’s a role-playing game based primarily on dice rolls and modifiers. You can be any of several characters with different abilities and characteristics, and these are often formed into groups for obtaining treasure, killing monsters, learning spells, and accomplishing various tasks. The game was very much under the radar for many years. In 1982, this changed with the rise of…

…Pat Pulling’s Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD). $1.00? You can’t even give it away. Darla said the graphics look like Michelle did them. It wouldn’t take long before the game garnered a lot of negative press. Initially, Pulling connected Dungeons & Dragons with suicide, particularly the suicide of her son…

…Irving Lee Pulling II, though in the pamphlet, the name appears as…

…apparently, a typo. On June 9, 1982, Pat’s son, also known as…Bink…committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with his father’s revolver. As is the case with so many teen suicides, and this was clear in the essay about rock music and suicide, the unfortunate person uses a firearm belonging to the parents…a gun that wasn’t secured properly, something that probably led to a heavy burden of guilt for parents who didn’t lock up their guns. Bink was described as an intelligent kid who…was in a program for the talented and gifted at his high school, Patrick Henry High.

Irving Lee Pulling II was a gifted high school student who took an unusually keen interest in wars, science fiction and the popular fantasy game called Dungeons & Dragons.

It was also noted that he had an affinity for Tolkien, and writing poetry. The overlap of Bink’s interests is understandable enough. The Pullings…

…yes, decided to sue the school, and in particular, principal Robert A. Bracey III, alleging that the school should not have allowed D&D to be played as an…organized school activity. They wanted $1 million in damages and legal expenses, along with interest on the $1 million since the date of their son’s suicide. Later, she would go on to sue TSR, the maker of the game, for $10 million. Both lawsuits were dismissed.  These events appear to have been the impetus for the formation of BADD.

The strange thing about Pat Pulling’s claims about D&D essentially killing her son, is that the last straw was a curse pronounced on him by another player…

The curse reads…

Your soul is mine, and I choose the time.
At my command, you’ll reave the land,
A follower of evil, a killer of man.

Curses are a part of D&D. But it’s hard to see that this would lead to suicide, unless he believed the curse was real, and seeing that he would be compelled to kill, while judging himself unable, killed himself to save others. This may be alluded to in a suicide note he left stating that because he couldn’t kill them, he’d have to end his own life. However, it may be possible that “them” refers to someone else. But what did those who knew him say?

However, a number of Irving's classmates said the teen struggled with "fitting in," and seemed to be troubled for quite some time.

He struggled with making friends. Classmate Victoria Rockecharlie said Irving "had a lot of problems ... that weren't associated with the game." Another classmate said Irving attempted to run for school office, but nobody would agree to be his campaign manager.

He also wrote a very telling message on the blackboard in one of his classes…

Life is a joke.

But it should be noted that he left another suicide note, a very short one, but a very important one…

This is the last paper I will ever write, GOODBYE.

He wrote this on a test he had taken at school, after completing his finals for his junior year. The statement seems to be aimed at taking tests, and that he had no intentions of taking any more…referring to his upcoming senior year. Senior year marks the transition from being a kid to moving on in life as an adult. So one is tempted to attribute Bink’s suicide as linked to an unwillingness to move forward into adulthood. But he also seems to have felt isolated and rejected. That said, his mother would make bizarre comments about her son that suggested she was aware that something was very wrong with him (as per The Pulling Report by Michael Stackpole)…

The apparent confusion over what Mrs. Pulling did or did not know about her son’s emotional state gets stranger. Though she continues to present herself as taken completely by surprise at her son’s death in BADD publications, in The Devil’s Web and on national television programs, Mrs. Pulling herself offers a different picture to law enforcement officials. During a seminar given at the North Colorado/South Wyoming Detective Association 9-12 Sept 86 (and as reported in a seminar “synopsis” by Larry Jones, the editor of File 18) she said her son had been displaying “lycanthropic” tendencies like running around the backyard barking. Furthermore, according to Jones’ transcription:

He growled, screamed, walked on all fours, and clawed the ground. Nineteen rabbits raised by the Pullings were found torn to pieces in the last three weeks of his life, although stray dogs were never seen. A cat was found disemboweled with a knife. The internal torment which led to his death was plain, yet he had been a normally-well-adjusted, gifted young man only a few months before.

So it’s clear that Bink Pulling had been over-stressed and had descended into a psychotic breakdown.

However, a final contributing factor was a devastating view of himself. In Pat Pullings 1989 book, she said the following about some of the notes her son left behind…

This boy decided he was as evil as Adolph Hitler and the Antichrist? And he himself said that it was for this reason that he had to kill himself.

Certainly, the picture of a young man so tormented is not a pretty sight, nor is it a situation to be taken lightly. Still, is Pat Pulling’s obvious deception concerning her son’s death to be taken as a responsible action? In her statements meant for civilian consumption she acts as if her son’s death caught her utterly unawares – as if she had no clues about his troubles. Yet in court she tries to sue a principal for having ignored signs of emotional problems that were present in her son. These very signs she herself describes in hideous detail to law enforcement professionals – a full two years before appearing on Geraldo and three years before writing her book.

BADD went on to collect a list of names of those who committed suicide, committed homicide, or committed murder-suicide...or attempting any of these actions. The first suicide that was linked to Dungeons & Dragons, and set off opposition to the game and its inclusion as an element of the Satanic Panic was…

 …James Dallas Egbert III, who was only 16 years old at the time his story began. He was prodigy, taking classes at Michigan State University, after completing high school in just two years. He was described as a brilliant youth who had an IQ of 145. He was also a computer genius and was fond of D&D, which isn’t surprising since the game has always had an appeal to intelligent players. But on August 15, 1979, Egbert was last seen in the dormitory dining room and promptly disappeared. The investigation began…

…steam tunnels?

Yes, steam tunnels. There was a large network of tunnels under Michigan State University, and there were rumors that people acted out D&D fantasies in these tunnels, although at least one source claims it was the Tolkien group on campus who did this. His family hired a private investigator named William Dear, who descended into the tunnels in search of the Computer Boy Wonder…

And so our intrepid PI Dear anxiously searches for Egbert, accompanied by his side-kick…Dick Riddle. Yes, that is a real name. It was even claimed that investigators uncovered…a cork bulletin board in the boy’s room that had a strange configuration of thumbtacks on it. An arial view of the campus indicated that the tacks resembled the layout of university buildings. Wow! Great element in the story. But it would appear that he left a note requesting that should his body be found, it should be cremated. 

The only problem? He wasn’t there, alive or dead. However, the story goes that Egbert had gone into the tunnels with a bottle of sleeping pills to commit suicide. But he woke up the next day, and then left the tunnels and disappeared, this having nothing whatsoever to do with D&D. One of the things that troubled Egbert was his sexual orientation…

He was affiliated with a campus Gay Rights group.

Egbert was known to frequent gay bars in Lansing and Detroit, according to investigators, and was a member of the MSU Gay Council.

Egbert also was known to be a member of the MSU Gay Council. He had frequented gay bars in Lansing and Detroit and had spoken about homosexuality to MSU psychology classes. But Badgley refused to comment when asked if homosexuality had been a source of conflict between Egbert and his parents.

Ah, yes…the silence is deafening. But there was a problem…

…once drugs enter the picture, all bets are off, or, depending on your view, all bets are on.

He had obtained enough sleeping pills which, or so he thought, would kill him, and disappeared into the steam tunnels. But he woke up the next evening. Still, he faced the same demons sometime later. He left Lansing after his failed suicide attempt and booked a room in a motel in New Orleans. He purchased the ingredients needed to make cyanide, and then mixed the cyanide with root beer and drank it. But again, he woke up the next day.

Based on claims made by Dear, the following scenario seems possible - perhaps even likely. Egbert, after attempting suicide and seriously ill, went to the house of a man of his acquaintance, possibly a lover. This man cared for Egbert. He wanted Egbert to get the proper help but he threatened to kill himself if the man contacted anyone. Just as the boy was getting well, all hell broke loose with the police investigating his disappearance.

Because of either an actual sexual relationship with Egbert or merely the fear that such a thing would be suspected, this man did not feel able to contact the authorities. He enlisted the help of friends to keep Egbert hidden. These men then contacted Dear anonymously. They wanted him to leave Lansing in order to increase their chances of avoiding detection. They also attempted to negotiate a way of safely handing Egbert to the authorities safely. A woman named Cindy Hulliberger somehow knew where he was (Egbert said he believed he had met her at one of the houses he had stayed at). She, either of her own volition, or as some sort of go-between, made contact with Dear through Cliff Perotti and eventually arranged meetings with people who knew about Egbert and his whereabouts. Finally, perhaps as a result of the meeting with a man named Archibald Horn, Egbert was told to contact William Dear.

Unfortunately, even though Egbert was found, his story did not have a happy ending. For a time after his disappearance, his life improved greatly. His relationship with his mother improved and he reenrolled in college, this time at Wright State. In early 1980, the situation began to revert back to what it was before, as his problems re-emerged. William Dear remained one of his few friends and attempted to help him. On April 14, 1980, Egbert quit school. He wanted to work in a computer store, but instead took a job with his father, who was an optometrist.  In late July he moved into a flat with a twenty-three-year-old acquaintance. Dear attempted to persuade him to return home but Egbert insisted that life with his parents was unbearable. And so he tried suicide for a third time…

Unlike Patricia Pulling, Egbert’s parents attributed at least some of his demons to a lack of programs dedicated to help meet the emotional needs of gifted children. We know that his relationship with his parents was strained, and Dear stated that his mother had pushed him too hard as his academic development was concerned. This pressure may be why he dropped out of college. He also wrestled with his sexual orientation, then add drugs to the mix, and the result is a very poor outlook on life. He died on September 24, 1979. And it is certain that D&D had absolutely no relevance to his suicide. But it must be admitted that the denunciations directed at D&D began with the death of James Dallas Irving II.

July 24, 1980, saw the disappearance of a young man named Bill Hawksworth. He was known was 19 years old and went by the nickname…Thor. There were different views about his disappearance, with one suggesting he had been the victim of kidnapping or a similar crime. His mother spoke to her son, who lived, with several roommates, at Colorado State University. That was about 5:00 pm. Bill missed his shift at work, where he was scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm. This gives a precise time for his disappearance. His asthma medication was left behind, and he took only a few items with him…his backpack and a Blues Brothers tape. His car was left in his parents’ driveway.

The situation began somewhat more complicated when a friend of his claimed that he met Bill on July 26.

Now this is hardly original. As discussed above, James Dallas Egbert II disappeared on August 15, 1979. Originally, it was believed that Egbert descended into the steam tunnels under Michigan State University, intending to act out some bizarre scenario linked to a real-life game of D&D. Clearly, the police investigating the disappearance of Hawksworth were copying what happened in the Egbert disappearance. As it turned out, Egbert did enter the steam tunnels, but he did so to attempt to suicide. He failed, and would reappear, much to the surprise of everyone involved. And so it was that Thor returned home two months later. It turned out that he had boarded a bus and took a trip traveling around the west and northwest. He spent some time in Utah because he went broke, having left home with only $1,000. Then he called his mother from a bus terminal in Fort Collins to announce his return.

So what about Thor? Surely his D&D character was something malevolent.

Ok, not so malevolent after all. It wasn’t that Thor was summoned up as an imagined real-life character for the game. No, Thor was a character taken into D&D, naturally enough. He was an eclectic, and most likely, a very interesting guy to know. I’d be more than happy to call him Thor. There were some that cited what Thor had said to them…

Sad, but I don’t know why he would think this. And if he really did feel this way, then it is possible that he was wrong…

His mother spent a lot of money trying to find him.

Bill liked to be crazy (referring to his sense of humor), but he could always control his craziness, a friend said. At times he could be very mellow and intellectual.

So the character of Thor survived even after Bill grew tired of D&D. Now it is worth noting that in the Dungeons & Dragons Panic, Thor’s case is not usually referred to in relevant discussions. However, one could argue that it wasn’t the case involving Egbert that provided the impetus for the panic. It was the lowest common denominator in the case of Thor, even though it was ridiculous. But the apparent applicability of D&D to troubling situations involving people who play, or quit playing, the game, became a knee-jerk reaction for years.

On May 19, 1981…

…Michael P. Dempsey of Lynnwood, WA, committed suicide with his father’s service revolver. The story surrounding Michael’s death is bizarre…

I’ve never been cursed because I beat someone at backgammon, though, to be honest, I rarely win. This story about the backgammon game sounds like a kid throwing a temper tantrum because he lost, but it would seem that Michael was falling out with his mother…

The Dempseys became concerned when Mike began exhibiting a personality transformation. He walked up to my wife one day and said…I don’t love you anymore…with no emotion whatever.

The list of things on the boy’s shopping list is bizarre, but crystal balls, Ouija boards, and tarot cards do not suggest D&D, although they are very much a part of…

…the occult, which is not the same as D&D. But in this article, his parents’ fear of his involvement in the occult is the main focus. The weapons have nothing to do with spells but are the kind of things boys his age think are pretty cool. Demons are part of Dungeons & Dragons, but they are a “monster” to be fought and defeated by the adventurers.

A dungeon master can throw an astonishing variety of monsters at their party during an adventure, from orcs and goblins to dragons and even deadly plants. Demons rank as the most powerful and are symbolic creatures of evil, hailing from the Abyss – seeking carnage and chaos wherever they go.

Now it is true that there is a spell called…summon. When this spell is successfully cast, a monster appears that, although it is normally an enemy, fights on behalf of the magic user. But you must roll dice, with the numerical value checked against the numerical value of a large number of monsters...meaning that summoning a demon is against the odds. I’ve done this before, and every time, coincidentally, I summoned a monster to fight a demon that was proving difficult to defeat.

Few details about the circumstances surrounding his death are verifiable, as the only source of information is Dempsey's father, who was strongly against the game. His father claims to have seen Michael summoning actual D&D demons in his room before his death and described the odors of sulfur and garlic (which he claims are part of a demon summoning ritual) after his death. It’s worth noting that garlic was used to ward off evil spirits, rather than summoning them. And what about Sulphur? The two combined are particularly associated with warding off vampires…

When garlic is cut or chopped, it releases a sulfur compound called allicin, which is a powerful antibiotic. Some medieval Europeans believed that vampires were created by a blood disease, so garlic was thought to be a strong antibiotic that could kill them.

Vampires are also an enemy in D&D, and they are particularly hard to defeat. The only time I defeated one was when I was eating a double-garlic, sulfur pizza.

On April 30, 1983…Harold T. Collins (the third supposed suicide list in BADD’s $1.00 pamphlet) was found hanging by the neck in his basement. His sister, Deborah Faulhammer, stated:

 …We played the game with him but we stopped when he walked about the house in his evil character and he became hostile if we joked about D&D. He told us if we did not stop joking he would call down a bolt of lightning to kill us.

However, the act resulting in his death was not suicide. It was far more embarrassing…

And…

Sorry for the poor quality. This is an instance of attempted auto-erotic asphyxiation, a practice where the participant attempts to restrict the flow of oxygen to the brain to increase sexual pleasure. This practice goes back at least to 1791, when Czech violinist, double bassist, and composer…

…Frantishek Koczwara (shown left)…died as a result of an incidence of this act with a prostitute. However, this was his second request. His first request was that she castrate him, but he had to settle for hanging. In the case of Harold Collins, the police found letters from friends of his who also were interested in this high-risk, lethal sexual practice. The scariest thing about a most scary thing is that in the 1600s, it was a recommended treatment for erectile dysfunction, suggested by the phenomenon known as the Death Erection, or…Angel Lust, observed in men who had been hanged as criminals, or simply at the moment of death.

Ah, yes…very funny. But it should be noted that Europe underwent a Vampire Scare during the 1730s and onward. Bodies were dug up in graveyards to determine if they were vampires. One thing that was commented on was the erection that was sometimes noted with corpses of those suspected of being vampires. Yes…Vampire Penises. In more modern times, an infamous Hustler article discussing the subject was titled…

Ah, the things you learn. The mother of 14-year-old boy Troy Dunaway…

…who read the article and accidentally died while attempting it. At first, she successfully sued the magazine but lost on appeal.

On January 16, 1983, 20-year-old Timothy Grice died as the result of a shotgun blast. The following statement is interesting…

…so the coroner would not say decisively that the gunshot was self-inflicted. That leaves other possible explanations for what befell Timothy.

This claim appears in an article that is very hostile to D&D, and it makes wild claims. That said, this description of Timothy’s death does not actually give a specific reason that links Timothy’s death with D&D. It simply makes two statements, with no direct connection offered. What’s missing is…why? Why would his participation in D&D lead to the, apparent, suicide? Timothy could have been an enthusiastic player of D&D, and a very depressed and suicidal young man. However, a bizarre link was offered by another source…

…so here we are given the link…how D&D led to Timothy’s death. If this is correct, then it would seem that we are dealing with a situation in which Timothy put a shotgun to his head with the intention of killing himself and then coming back to life. This explanation is strained to say the least. It seems likely that he would be attempting to prove this to someone else, and if true, then at least one someone else should be present. Hypothetically, this could take us back to the coroner’s unwillingness to claim that the shot was self-inflicted. But if doubt is applicable, one other option is possible here…Grice was messing around with the gun, and believed it wasn’t loaded. This scenario is directly encountered in other cases. And while D&D characters can be resurrected, it isn’t easy and is not something that occurs routinely. Killing is something that occurs routinely in the game and seems far more likely that if Grice was so mentally imbalanced that he believed he could carry out an action from Dungeons & Dragons and defy the inevitable consequences, an act of killing could possibly be more likely.  However, the case involving Timothy Grice is obscure, and there are too many unknown features of his life that allow one to delve into his life with any specific details. However, shooting yourself with a shotgun for the specific reason of bringing oneself back to life is unlikely, whereas messing around with a gun that one believes is unloaded but isn’t, makes more sense than the explanation given above. Still, if the claim about the extent of Grice’s immersion in D&D, like so many other things, is true, then it can be said that it wasn’t a healthy thing. The article is over simplistic, and the best part of the article is the…

…sooper-dooper illustrations.

On October 10, 1985, two ex-marines…

…Joe Garner and Mike Mieritz robbed the Franklin Arms gun shop. One victim was shot and died at the scene; another was seriously injured. The exact plan remains a mystery. They were quickly arrested and because the death penalty was on the table, Garner pled guilty in exchange for life in prison. Mieritz managed to get a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and play the insanity card. Much was made about the fact that both men played D&D since they were young and had played it together during their military service. They claimed to have become disenchanted with the Marine Corps because it wasn’t tough enough, but one wonders whether the two simply decided that they didn’t like the discipline, with apparently no sense of self-discipline either. Leaving the Corp they moved into a trailer with Joe Garner’s mother. In a similar suspicion that Eric Harris was the dominate partner in his alliance with Dylan Klebold, Mrs. Garner claimed that her son was the junior partner, and that Mieritz was controlling Joe. It’s no surprise that D&D became an excuse, and very weak proof of this was floated around…

…look at all the proof! Some D&D figurines and a Chinese throwing-star. Your regular D&D player will have a bigger collection than that shown above. In prison, Garner asked his mother to send him his old D&D manuals…which she refused to do. He later said…

I’ve heard the stuff about the Dungeon Master sending people out to kill, but it didn’t happen with us. It wasn’t the game’s fault.

He later stated that he was to blame. Mieritz attempted to play the game in prison, but prison rules usually ban dice to prevent gambling. And although he indicated his regret for pulling the trigger, he proceeds to blame the death on the victim…

Yet, Daniel Murray had a chance to get out of the way of the bullet that killed him. Murray didn’t take his chance, and so he died…what more can I say?

Well, nothing. Mieritz was a psychopath who knew what to tell psychologists to successfully convince the court that he was insane. Garner was under his control, producing a strange dynamic that is, unfortunately, not particularly rare.

On November 19, 1985, a terrible tragedy occurred in Austin. Twelve-year-old…

…Leif Sean Boyd apparently committed suicide by jumping from the 15th floor of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Austin, Texas. The story has it that he rode his bike to the hotel, had a backpack with him, and was seen by a maid shortly before he jumped. Dungeons & Dragons paraphernalia was found in his backpack. There were two different themes in the media at the time…D&D caused the suicide, and, conversely, that the real motives for his decision aren’t known. Not having answers is even more painful than the event, so when an easy excuse comes along, many people feel inclined to grasp it. But his father stated that Leif had only recently come across the game. Why the stuff in his backpack? He loved playing D&D, so he took it with him when he died. Of course, twelve is a very young age to decide that you’d be better off dead, and this suggests that a hard look should be made into his life, such as his experiences at the private school, the Austin Waldorf School, he was attending at the time, though a teacher at the school, Catherine King, said that Leif was a frequent participant in school events. In addition, one is inclined to ask why he would do this from a hotel balcony. I noted a strange thing…

Yes, I found this strange given the fact that the Hyatt Regency in question was a luxury hotel. I find it perplexing that a luxury hotel would tolerate becoming a hang-out for young kids which, if true, would only attract more kids and more trouble. Riding up and down in the glass elevators? And the Regency’s staff didn’t put an end to such behavior? And what is more believable, is something discovered by the police…

We understand that Leif told another student he was going to the Hyatt and jump off the building. The other student thought he was just joking.

His father did provide us with excellent advice…

On November 12, 1985, 15-year-old…

…David Ventiquattro snuck up behind 11-year-old Martin E Howland. At the time, Martin was playing an Atari video game in David’s room. David had a shotgun, and he put it to the back of Martin’s head and pulled the trigger. And just as everyone has idiosyncrasies, or they’d be boring, events have odd elements to them that don’t necessarily lead away from the canonical story but are nonetheless interesting. I think that this element is one of those…

It may just be me, but when I was 15, I would never hang out with an 11-year-old. True, it’s only four years’ difference, but those are four action packed years. To have an 11-year-old friend would, when I was that age, result in incessant bullying and mockery at school. And I think it’s important to note that the rest of David’s family was downstairs at the time. It may be the case that someone else saw the strange element…

So, there was David, holding a shotgun, and looking down at the mess that had been Howland, with his parents running upstairs to see what happened. What did David say happened? Well, he gave different explanations. Initially, and it was a bone-headed move, David said that Martin committed suicide. So, Martin was playing Atari and then stopped to put a shotgun against the back of his head and pulled the trigger…ending it all? That would never fly. That said, the police railroaded David…

Utter nonsense. This was a stupid claim made by the police because they had not read David his Miranda rights. You don’t have to be…read your rights…because you’ve been arrested. But police can’t question you without reading your Miranda rights to you. And the police didn’t, which means that, legally, everything David said to the police was inadmissible in court. Everything. So, the prosecutor floated this nonsense about TV shows to get a judge to not throw out what he should’ve been thrown out. The case should have died there. It did not. David was interrogated by three officers…even though he was a minor and had no adult present. When he went to the bathroom, the interrogators followed him in and continued questioning him. It got worse…

They resumed the interrogation. This time, Ventiquattro, who was 15 at the time, was told to re-enact the incident. Investigators Robert Semione and Robert Cooke handed David a broom and took him into a bedroom at the state police barracks north of Watertown. Semione testified Friday that Ventiquattro, pretending the broom handle was his 20-gauge Topper Model 88 shotgun, recalled how that knocked him backward.

Again, the case should have been thrown out. And we’ve all seen this in the movies…

It called…Interrogation Light. A hot lamp is placed directly in the face of a suspect, with the intention of creating discomfort, fear, and intimidation to get a confession. Like torture, it doesn’t stop until you tell interrogators what they want to hear. Is that irrelevant?

Defense counsel also established in detail that investigators illuminated an interrogation room with only a desk lamp, although the officer questioned could not remember where the light was directed.

I’m supposed to believe that? The police used a mild form of torture to get David to say what they wanted him to say. Not to mention the fact that they forced him to act out the supposed murder. In total, David was interrogated for six hours. So he came up with something that would end the ordeal…

Dungeons & Dragons! And how clever…the police have David intentionally killing Martin, and David can build an insanity plea.

It was a day in which more evidence was presented in an effort to link the shooting to the game Dungeons & Dragons. A photograph showed blood-splattered Dungeons & Dragons booklets scattered on Ventiquattro’s bed, and the prosecutor said that the defendant was working on a grid map connected with the game shortly before the shooting.

Bravo! What an awesome touch…D&D books splattered with blood! And David was working on a dungeon map, then set it aside, went and got a shotgun, and shot the victim in the back of the head.

Yes, it does have those things, but rarely ever does it have guns. The weapons used are essentially medieval ones. And he seems not to realize that magic users (Wizards, Warlocks, Witches, Illusionists, Clerics, etc.) are not the only characters. Warriors and Elves, and a whole host of other characters are chosen by players. The blurb cited above gives the impression that D&D is a game of the occult, which it certainly is not.

Of course it was disputed. And, I haven’t seen anything indicating that David played D&D with Martin. The game he was playing when he was killed was an Atari video game.

NO! They were not playing Dungeons and Dragons. And it’s safe to assume that none of the adults knew the first thing about D&D. Really?

A what? Isn’t this a little like someone who knows nothing about Black Sabbath claiming that the band had a song called…War Papers? Anyone else would know the song is…War Pigs. There is no employer in D&D. If David was making dungeon maps, then he was a Dungeon Master. If he said…employer, he was giving the police false information, and they didn’t know any better.

Well, he wasn’t guilty of nothing. The rest are tough choices. But second-degree manslaughter?

Second-degree manslaughter is a crime that occurs when someone causes the death of another person without intending to do so. It can happen due to carelessness or negligence, or while committing another crime. 

This was the verdict handed down by the Jury, and it was obviously the correct one…

Now we’re closer to the truth.

After further questioning, Ventiquattro changed that scenario to a version in which he accidentally shot Howland.

Yes, it was an accident. Perhaps it happened like this…David and Martin had quarreled, possibly about the Atari game. David decided to scare Martin, so he put a shotgun, which he believed wasn’t loaded, against the back of Martin’s head and pulled the trigger.

And they lived to tell the tale. Playmates? Sixteen-year-olds don’t have playmates, but they do like playmates…

On January 21, 1985…

…a fourteen-year-old boy named Scott James Kearbey went to Goddard Junor High School with a M1A .308 caliber semiautomatic rifle and a .357- Magnum pistol and killed principal James McGee, and wounded three others…

People who knew Kearbey described him as…bright and intelligent. He was a Boy Scout who was working for an Eagle Scout badge, and played basketball, football, and Dungeons & Dragons.

So we know that he didn’t spend all his time playing D&D, not by a long shot. And obviously, Kearbey wasn’t a loner, seeing that he participated in team sports. Loners typically don’t. And strangely, this event followed in the wake of a snowball fight that ended violently after other kids threw…Ice Bombs…at him.

Kearbey walked into the school at 11:05 dressed in a long coat, dark glasses and jeans. The long coat reminds one of the long coats worn by school shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold…

And like Dylan and Kleebold, who had others involved in the event, he didn’t just start shooting at everyone he saw. A schoolboy walked up and spoke to Kearbey, as did a teacher, and both lived to tell the tale. When he was arrested, he had a large amount of ammo, but he didn’t use it. So D&D caused this to happen? Did Dylan and Kleebold play Dungeons & Dragons? I haven’t seen anything that indicates they did, although there were odd rumours about some RPG (role-playing game).

But Kearney was having problems. Despite his intelligence, he was getting low grades in subjects he shouldn’t have. His mother stated that her son was having problems with kids at school and felt pressure to perform better. He was also described as obsessed with war and guns, and may have had a temper problem, although many adolescents do.

Although Kearbey’s parents declined an interview, the boy’s mother told KAKE-TV, Channel 10, that the principal and kids were picking on her son, and that he felt he was being mistreated. Therein may lie the reason for the shooting.

Kearbey’s case was obviously a school shooting. Brenda Spencer shot at her old school in 1979. But this wasn’t really a school shooting as we know it. She and someone else in her house took pot-shots at the school. She did not enter the school and open fire. And it can be said that the school shooting involving Kearbey had a very small body count. 

So we know he had problems with the person he killed. But he did injure three other people. Why handle the problem this way? Did he simply come up with the idea of shooting at the school?

Ok, the schools in the area were having a big problem with kids and guns. Kearbey was obsessed with war and weapons, and we know he was paranoid. It doesn’t take D&D to have set this kid off. Where did he get the guns? They were his father’s guns.

On New Years Day, 1985, 15-year-old Anthony Kimbrough shot his 14-year-old brother with their mother’s .32 caliber handgun. In the media, this death was directly linked to D&D. However, not exactly. The two boys were playing the game. As the story goes…Juan was the Dungeon Master and decided that he could throw a protective cloak spell around his character. That is interesting, since the Dungeon Master runs the game, and having a character in the game is a clear conflict of interest. For some reason, Juan declared himself invincible, and decided to test this by having his brother fire their mother’s gun at him. Not much was said about the boys, but I haven’t seen anything really negative, though it was said that the boys played the game too much.

It was a really tragic thing, Harris said. They were playing a game that deals heavily with fantasy death and used the gun as a kind of prop. From what I understand, Dungeons & Dragons is extremely popular with the kids in the neighborhood.

On New Years Day, 1985, 15-year-old Anthony Kimbrough shot his 14-year-old brother with their mother’s .32 caliber handgun. In the media, this death was directly linked to D&D. However, not exactly. The two boys were playing the game. As the story goes…Juan was the Dungeon Master and decided that he could throw a protective cloak spell around his character. That is interesting, since the Dungeon Master runs the game, and having a character in the game is a clear conflict of interest. For some reason, Juan declared himself invincible, and decided to test this by having his brother fire their mother’s gun at him. Not much was said about the boys, but I haven’t seen anything really negative, though it was said that the boys played the game too much.

It was a really tragic thing, Harris said. They were playing a game that deals heavily with fantasy death and used the gun as a kind of prop. From what I understand, Dungeons & Dragons is extremely popular with the kids in the neighborhood.

However, the death of Juan was an accident.

When he told his brother to take their mother’s gun and shoot him, the boys had removed the clip. So when the trigger was pulled, there should only have been a click. However, to disarm the gun, you remove the clip but must check to see if there is one in the chamber. They didn’t, and there was one. Juan’s death was an accidental shooting. This is very similar to the case discussed earlier, when a child was shot in the head with a shotgun that the guy pulling the trigger believed wasn’t loaded. There is no way that D&D can be held responsible for this tragic death. But I can think of something that was avoidable…how was it that the boys had direct access to their mother’s gun? In so many cases, including those linked to rock music, young people have no difficulty accessing guns in the family household. A nation of gun-lovers prefers to overlook this issue. If Juan’s mother kept the gun inaccessible to her sons, this death would never have happened.

How many of those kids persuaded their siblings to shoot them? None? Oh, it would seem that the problem was with Juan. Yes, there is death in the game…particularly the monsters that adventurers must fight along the way. And characters can die, but those that are of the higher levels are usually protected by Dungeon Masters. And, there are numerous ways that a character that has died can be brought back to life, such as by casting a resurrection spell. The emphasis in the game is not…fantasy death, that simply is not true. Guns are not usually part of D&D, so the introduction of a gun into D&D produces a game outside the standard game.

This is no ordinary game, Harris said. It looks more complicated than chess. One of the books was called Deities and Demagogues- Advanced.

This is incorrect. I think that reference is being made to…

…Deities & Demigods. Demigods are half-human, half-divine…

…Aeneas, son of Anchises and the goddess Venus; Achilles, son of Peleus and the goddess Thetis; Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene; and Perseus, son of Zeus and the mortal woman Danae. All, except Aeneas, appear in Deities & Demigods. These are demagogues…

 …Cleon of Athens; Mussolini; Hitler; and Joseph McCarthy. None of these guys are in D&D. In addition, D&D is not a complicated game. It is essentially a dice-rolling game, with modifiers and tables listing various monsters, items, spells, etc. Creating a character is simple, and was once this is done, you use the dice to move forward in the game. It is not complicated…more than chess?

I’m told that to die in combat while playing the game is nothing, Harris said. Because there are spells which can be cast to bring you back. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works in real life.

I don’t know who he was talking to on this point. No D&D player would ever say that having their character die is…nothing. It can be quite upsetting to have a character developed over time…die, and many Dungeon Masters will attempt to avoid having a player’s character die. As I noted, you can bring a dead character back to life with a resurrection spell, but not in all circumstances. If your Magic User does not have the right spell in his spell book, your dwarf or elf is in big trouble. You can’t take it for granted.

On May 26, 1985…

…Missy Macon was murdered by three adolescents named Cayce Moore (17), Scott Davis (17), and Chris White (14). Missy worked at Cubberd’s convenience store. At 9:30 pm, Missy’s body was found, shot in the back of the head with a .25 caliber handgun. About $700 was taken from the cash register, though the robbers left a lot more behind. She was cleaning a nachos oven and was shot from behind without even being startled. Cayce, Davis, and Chris were playing video games in the store just prior to the murder. However, Scott was waiting in the car just before the killing. Strangely, they had earlier been at the convenience store where Moore’s mother worked. Two of the boys, Cayce and Davis, were found by police at a rest stop and after White told police where to find them…

That’s a lot of police. Both held guns to their heads and threatened suicide. Apparently, they were motivated by remorse, specifically stating that they should die because they killed an innocent woman. Maybe. Much was made of the boys’ fondness for D&D.

However, this wasn’t the right game…

Top Secret?

This was an espionage role playing game that was published in 1980. The game involves creating espionage scenarios, and features three specific bureaus…Assassination, Confiscation, and Investigation. It uses…

…10-side dice, which is also standard in D&D. The game was published by TSR, Inc…the same company that published Dungeons & Dragons seven years prior.

And…

And then there were two…

But justice was certainly done…

Now for the perverse…

Like shooting a dog? So much for remorse.

On January 21, 1985…

…James Austin Stailey committed suicide in a terrifying way. An aspiring actor, he went to his drama class with a sawed-off shotgun, raised it to his head, and fired. For those present, well…some things you can’t unsee. He was the lead actor in…The Real Inspector Hound. James was known as the class clown who did well in his classes, and those who knew him maintained that there were no signs that he was suicidal. He liked to read science fiction and practiced Tai Chi Chean. He had, moreover, indicated that he wished to take theatre class at the University of Texas, Arlington.

And…

This case was cited by BADD as an example of the significant role that D&D has in teenage suicide. And although the game is not accused of what happened, in the article at least, in the case of the suicide, it does make a point of referring to it. Nothing in the story suggests D&D caused his suicide any more than Tai Chi or science fiction or being in the drama club.

However, could there be a different cause for the suicide?

A high school senior who climbed onto a classroom stage and killed himself with a sawed-off shotgun as a teacher and four classmates watched had been a good student and showed no apparent signs of suicidal distress officials say. James Austin Stalley, 17, a drama student with a flair for jokes, killed himself Friday afternoon after asking the others in the-room “heavy philosophical questions” about the meaning of life, said police spokesman Jim Willett.

 He asked me…what is the meaning of life? But it wasn’t unusual for him to say something like that.

 And…

Stailey told the other students there must be no God, but if there was, he was going to be mad at Him. God, he told the student, hadn’t helped him out of his problems.

This doesn’t sound like Dungeons & Dragons. So, what prompted the thoughts that he had?

Stailey seemed to feel the normal despair a child does after his parents, Garvin and Joanne, divorced.

On April 1985, 13-year-old Roland Cartier, a D&D player, committed suicide by hanging. Many blamed the game…

But as is true in other cases, the individual in question was a troubled youth…

Drug abuse and family strife are often a contributing factor in teenage suicide.

On December 4, 1986…

…Kristofor Hans, 14 years old at the time, shot and killed Henrietta Smith, a substitute teacher in Lewistown. Assistant Principal John Moffatt was critically wounded, and two students were also injured.

Kristofor was part of a group of D&D players of whom another student said, "Nobody associates with them. They're different from everybody else. They play D&D all the time."

Hans was described by Weinheimer and sophomore Tim Severson as quiet and a fan of the fantasy board game…Dungeons & Dragons. He had a few friends, Weinheimer said. Nobody associates with them. They’re kind of scared to. They’re different from everybody else. They play D&D all the time. They do drugs. Asked if Hans used drugs, Weinheimer said…I don’t know if he did, but I know some of the others do.

Ok. But other students said something very important…

Hans was flunking French and openly threatened to kill his French teacher LaVonne Simonfy.

Hans was living with his mother, but his father would only agree to that arrangement if he maintained a 3.3 grade point average. So in his mind, Simonfy would end that agreement. Unfortunately, Henrietta Smith was substituting for Ms. Simonfy and was shot by accident.

On the witness stand, Hans told of his fascination with the horror-and-suspense stories of Stephen King and said he had drawn his inspiration for the shootings from King’s story “Rage.” Hans said the story involves a student having problems with a teacher.

And…

The kid in the book did it, so I thought I’d do it too.

Hans has been diagnosed as having psychological problems and needing treatment for several years. Last June, in pleading innocent to the charges, he had claimed mental illness.

During his trial, his mother, Terri Hardy, claimed that he had been subjected to physical abuse at the hands of his father. Following their divorce, his father obtained custody of Kristofor. However, she attempted to gain custody of her son, but this was denied…

…because the court felt that the father’s home provided considerably more structure and challenge to a very talented and capable young man.

Yet he did end up living with his mother, and the gun used for the shooting belonged to his stepfather.

He was accused of being obsessed with the occult and violence in general. In particular, he was having difficulty with his parents’ divorce. But, Ms. Simonfy was about to give Kris a failing grade in French, and he told other students that he intended to kill her. So it’s clear that Kris had a tangible motive for what he did, and Dungeon & Dragons, and the fact that he was part of the outsider subculture, had nothing to do with it.

As opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, it is clear that the most important influence for Kristophor’s actions here is…

…the novel…Rage, written by Stephen King, originally published under the pseudonym...Richard Bachman. The central character, Charlie Decker, carries out a school shooting, and holds a classroom full of other schoolkids hostage. The kids slowly begin identifying with him. This book would be cited in relation to other school shootings (Jeffrey Cox; Dustin Pierce; Ryan Harris; Scott Pennington; Michael Carneal; and Barry Loukaitis), and King himself requested that the novel be allowed to go out of print. From a cultural point of view, it was this novel that had the most tangible influence on Hans.

On December 13, 1986…

…Wyley Gates (17) murdered his father, his father’s girlfriend, his brother, and his cousin with a .38 caliber handgun. On December 4, Gates and two friends, Damian Rossney and Miles McDonald, robbed his father’s house and stole some guns, including the one used to kill Gates’ family. They also stole holsters, a camping hatchet, a ring, bourbon, two Walkmans, a watch and some cash.

Gates, according to one account, allegedly killed his family as part of the macabre fantasy play similar to Dungeons and Dragons, a popular game in which players, striving to avoid a series of “monsters,” act out particular characters under the guidance of a dungeon master during a quest for treasure.

The key word is…similar, the actual game isn’t named at this point, and the description, albeit a short one, is that of D&D, not the actual game that was…similar…to D&D.

Wyley Gates, twisted mastermind of an assassin-style program called Infierno, which he used in 1986 to execute a bloodbath so heartless and gruesome it was dubbed “the crime of the century” in upstate New York.

We saw the same thing with the murder of Missy Macon, who was murdered by three boys in a convenience store. D&D was cited, but it turned out that the relevant game was…Top Secret. The word infierno is Spanish for…inferno. This has been described as a computer game, written by Gates, who was a computer whiz, but was really the blueprint for the murders. The name is telling since the original plan was to set the house on fire with everyone still inside. So it is less an actual “game” and more the plan for the murders. In fact, Wyley made fun of connections being drawn in the media. The following is the Black Max letter written by Wyley…

Remember the three gallons of liquid paper glue ("slime") that I had? I put it in my closet and my uncle found it. No one could figure out what it was, so the police called in the bomb squad. They apparently thought that it might be nitroglycerin, as if I would leave 3 gallons of it lying around in my room. Anyway, they took it up into the field behind my house and tried to blow it up with some explosives. My grandmother said that they even had a helicopter. So far, I haven't heard anything about it in the media. I wonder why? Would you happen to know how all of the hype about the video game called "Infierno" evolved? I sure as hell don't. The police will probably spend a lot of money-making fools out of themselves. They will probably hire a computer specialist to review all of our discs. . .

Jail is fun (Just kidding). Please contact me.

Author Alen Gelb, commenting on the negative reporting about Dungeons & Dragon in the press, stated…

That Dungeons and Dragons was the inspiration for the crime committed on December 13 is doubtful; that the game, as well as other fantasy-oriented games, was an influence on the boys is probable. Indeed, it was another fantasy game, Infierno- an allusion to hell as depicted by Dante- that provided the code name for the plan to kill Robert Gates.

Wyley gates had been committing burglaries and skipping school. It was also indicated that Wyley hated his father…

He didn’t like his father, McDonald said. His father pushed him too much. He didn’t like the idea that he was so smart and didn’t work like his older brother.

However, Gates does have a schizoid personality disorder, characterized by aloofness, shyness and difficulty forming friendships.

The defense claimed that Wyley was a paranoid schizophrenic, though at least one psychologist stated that he was not psychotic. 

But is there a better motive?

…one of the most popular motives in human history for murder…money. This will appear again in another case.

The motive for the murders was the "thrill" of the role-playing game.

No, the role-playing game did not lead Wyley to kill. The “game” was really a plan to kill his family for the inheritance. And even if this were remotely plausible, D&D was completely irrelevant.

On October 4, 1991, Darren Huenemann (18) arranged for two friends to kill his mother and grandmother…Sharon Heunemann and Doris Leatherbarrow. They were stabbed and bludgeoned to death, and the bodies were not found until Thanksgiving. Along with his friends, David Muir and Derik Lord, he tried and found guilty. Darren was, to put it simply…insane. Much was made of the fact that Darren played D&D, and was, in fact, a Dungeon Master. This is the player who plans the game and controls it throughout.

Friends who played the game Dungeons and Dragons with Huenenmann said he often talked about killing his grandmother, describing in detail how he would snap her neck.

Now his grandmother was not killed in this manner. However, the…neck snapping…did lead to a very perplexing element of Darren’s insanity…

…he wanted to go down to hell and snap Satan’s neck and sit on his throne until somebody else came along and did the same to him.

Yes, that is strange, although standing on Satan’s neck is familiar theme…

…being suggestive of Michael vs. Satan. So, did he view his grandmother as Satan? And it would seem that he played D&D every Friday, where he would tell others about wanting to kill his family, making D&D a setting for making terrible threats, not the cause.

One fascinating element of the story involves Darren playing a role in a certain production…

…the Emperor Gaius, the third emperor of Rome, who is more commonly known by his nickname…Bootsy…Little Boots…or…Caligula. Darren was supposed to star in a school play about the Emperor Caligula. Of course, the popular understanding of Caligula, which the Senatorial class in ancient Rome was always keen to play up, is that of an unrestrained, vicious madman who killed anyone who stood still long enough to have his throat slit. This image of Gaius is not historically accurate. And what did Darren think?

This was an important element in the case in the media…that in studying about Caligula for the play, he became more and more obsessed with him. He went so far as to refer to his friends as the Praetorian Guard, the personal and powerful bodyguards to the Romen emperor. It is easy to not catch how important this was…

There was always a sense of Darren being adrift. The only real relationship he has is with Caligula, that’s the only place where he has any kind of emotional connection.

Apparently, not all role-playing is in D&D…

It compellingly journeys into Huenemann’s mind by paralleling his fantasies with the story of the evil, tormented Roman emperor Caligula, who this teenaged control freak becomes increasingly obsessed with.

In short, Darren thought he could actually become Caligula. That is indicated in two ways. First, Caligula was accused of killing different members of his own family, including his father Germanicus, his sister Drusilla, and his great uncle, Emperor Tiberius, his cousin Tiberius Gemellus, his ex-brother-in-law Lucius Cassius Longinus, and his brother-in-law and cousin Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

What is well known is that his mother and grandmother were wealthy. One of the claims accepted by the jury was that the murders were prompted by Darren seeking to obtain his grandmother’s $3 million estate. Other sources give different numbers, some as high as $5 million. And it would seem that his mother and grandmother had actually discussed their wealth with him. So, it would appear that he had that tried-and-true motive for murder…money. But there is a twist. What did he want to do this money? Live it up? Wine and women? Jet-setting around the world? Perhaps. But not all of it would be used for such things…

It would seem clear…Darren Huenemann was attempting to morph into a New Caligula

Dungeons & Dragons also came up as an important consideration in a sexual attack perpetrated by…

Armando (33) and Angela (21) Simon. Armando was a former psychologist in the Texas Department of Corrections. Oh, yes…he counseled prison inmates convicted of sexual crimes. However, he was guilty of similar things, and a prison official says that Simon should have been vetted better before having been hired.

And…

Armando and Angela were convicted of sexual activity with a fifteen-year-old girl. The age of consent in Texas is seventeen, making this statutory rape. Armando was sentenced to nine years in prison. Angela was an active enabler. She aided in convincing the girl to have sex with her husband…

Dies said the best evidence of the couple’s guilt stemmed from a diary that Angela Simon’s attorney admitted into evidence. In the diary, she used sexually explicit words when writing about her husband and the girl.

She was also accused of watching the activity. But the girl at the heart of the matter wasn’t the only one…

 …Investigators raiding the couple’s Angleton apartment said they found photo albums showing the couple in sex acts with several people – most of them teenagers.

A group of teenage girls were at the trial as witnesses. And the misogynist wife of a rapist can be seen in two regards. First, her defense claimed that the girl’s testimony was rehearsed, and that the teenagers who testified against the couple sought to satisfy their theory that the Simons ran a…kiddie porn ring. And there’s more…there’s always…more…

Yes! The girl described sexual acts that were simply impossible to perform! Wow, that makes me really want to read the trial testimony...I thought I knew everything about sexual gymnastics…but apparently, I don’t. Of course, impugn the victim. However, the case also featured a fist fight between the prosecutor and Armando. Angela made a final statement after receiving a five-year probated sentence…

…Mrs. Simon, found guilty of urging the teenager to have sex with Simon, was walking out of the courtroom when she cried out an insult and screamed…You bitch! You liar!” and grabbed one of the teenage witnesses in the case.

So why is this relevant?

Dies argued that the couple used the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons to lure the girl into a sexual relationship.

So, did the Simons become what they did because of D&D? No, they were always predators. They could have used any means as an enticement to lure their victims. As they usually do, sexual predators are very skilled at finding things that their victims enjoy in order to gain access to them.

On August 22, 1988, another teen suicide took place…

The person in question was…

…Clifford James Nunez Meling, who attended Green Mountain High School.

The only witnesses were a collection of figurines above his bed. The dozens of inch-tall knights and wizards, carefully painted by him were the kind of characters in the imaginary world of the game he played, Dungeons and Dragons. Because the game sometimes requires players to mimic up to 20 kinds of insanity- Suicidal Mania, Homicidal Mania and schizophrenia. Some experts think it contributed to the teen-ager’s suicide.

I can’t say it was the only factor, but it was one of them, said Dr. David Bethel, Marshall County medical examiner. It can mess up vulnerable kids.

But is that the real reason? Clifford appears to have seen…

…his life revolving around football. His father, Gary Meling, when asked whether D&D had anything to do with his son’s suicide…

Clifford came down with a case of Mononucleosis, aka…the Kissing Disease, because saliva is the prime means of transmission. However…

 Most people feel better from mono in 2–4 weeks, but some may experience tiredness for several more weeks. In some cases, the symptoms can linger for 6 months or longer. 

Of course, we don’t know what Clifford’s doctor told him about whether he would have long-term effects from mono, but in general, the symptoms abate, and normalcy returns. And the same Medical Examiner who sought to bring D&D into the picture had to admit…

So, Clifford didn’t even refer to the game in his suicide note.

Gary Melling proves to be a responsible parent. He knew that some people take the game too seriously, so he monitored his son’s D&D play. And he didn’t play it long enough for his son to be affected by him. Fortunately, he didn’t overact to the overacting nun with a superstitious mind-set. Clifford could not face life as anything other than a football player. And therein lies the ultimate problem, and it wasn’t D&D.

I mention another case in passing because of the pure tragedy of it, and society’s all-around failure to help a sick boy. On March 12, 1986, a young runaway burglar and thief named Louis Solomon (July 11, 1970 – March 12, 1986), a fifteen-year-old, was picked up by the police. In a mindboggling screw-up, Louis was not searched when put in the police cruiser, and he pulled a gun out the waistband of his pants. Police tried for three hours to get Louis to drop the gun. Instead, he put it to his head and, after being tased, pulled the trigger. The officer, Lynn Ruch, came under fire for neglecting to do something we all know to do…thoroughly search a suspect before you put him in the cruiser…

This was a failing, but it was only one small element in a much bigger tragedy. Then came all the questions about motive. It was claimed that Louis had been into witchcraft. But, to my surprise…

In the end, the police were blamed for the death, the argument being that Louis pulled the trigger because of the effects of the taser.

Many of the departments that continued using Tasers soon ran into trouble. In Pinellas County, police used a Taser during a standoff with a suicidal 15-year-old Miami runaway. When Louis Phillip Solomon was struck by the weapon, his body seized up, causing him to pull the trigger and fatally shoot himself in the head.

He also seemed very confused about his religious beliefs. He mentioned things such as devil worship. Solomon had talked about the devil at school too.

And with all the evidence that follows, Louis’s stepfather decided to jump on the evils of D&D bandwagon…

At the time of his detention, he was sleeping on the streets. And problems? Here is a poem Louis wrote…

What if I want to be dead,
And it’s implanted in my head,
That it’s what I want to see,
And everyone else stops me,
But one day I’ll succeed.

Dying is the only way,
Everlasting peace some would say,
After all some are possessed,
That suicide is the best,
How come when I try…it’s impossible for me to die?

And he wrote to his grandmother…

When I’m 18, I’m gonna get a gun to kill myself with it, one way or another.

But there’s more…

It began, according to court records, at the age of 5. That was the year he started hearing voices and seeing things.

He was schizophrenic at the age of 5; he was living on the streets at the age of 13, and his mother ran away with a motorcycle gang. Wonderful.

One is tempted to conclude that Louis wasn’t being taken seriously if an episode of self-harm can be described as…token.

Now hold on…the problem began when he was 13? He was schizophrenic at the age of five, and sleeping on the streets, and suicidal from a young age. Not to mention the Hells-Angels-Mother of his.

Can’t find the parents? Attempted suicide because of his relationship with his mother?

When Louis pulled the trigger, he had spent 10 months on a Dade County waiting list for urgent mental health services. The state of Florida said it couldn’t afford to help him, at least not yet. He was the twenty-eighth child on the waiting list.

The Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) came under fire…

They are the people who make the waiting lists. They are the people who agreed Louis needed special help. They are the people who decided Louis would have to wait because there wasn’t enough money.

What makes the whole all the more sad was Louis, with a IQ of 150, had abilities. A friend of his said…

Ah! A game he played more than D&D! And in total contrast to the heart-breaking quotes I provided above, he said the following to a judge…

He also said…

Is there something wrong with me? Why can’t I behave?

Solomon’s mother was just 16 when he was born in Miami. She never married the boy’s father, according to her husband A.J. Flaherty. All his life he said he wanted to meet his real father, Flaherty said. Louis had been in touch with him. He kept promising he’d come and see him. But the meeting never took place.

So, I suppose people can seek to save the young from Dungeons & Dragons, while those who need help the most are left to die. Can’t find the parents? Attempted suicide because of his relationship with his mother? Oh, well…case terminated.