German man arrested after UK gamer's murder
Online war of words went too far?
A German gamer has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a British man who ran a website devoted to the Nintendo DS game series Advanced Wars.
Matthew Pyke, 20, of North Sherwood Street, Nottingham, was found stabbed to death at his flat one week ago.
A screenshot from Advanced Wars: Dark Conflict
On Wednesday, German police arrested 21-year-old David Hess, from Limburg, Germany, after he was discovered by British law enforcement officers to have posted a note in a forum on Pyke’s Wars Central website, in which he apologised to Pyke’s girlfriend for “having caused so much trouble lately”.
A few days after the murder, Hess left a second message, this time on Pyke’s girlfriend’s Facebook page. He reiterated that he was sorry for having caused so much trouble lately. Police say he had never contacted the girl through Facebook until that point.
Investigators believe that Pyke and Hess may have had a disagreement over the game, and that Pyke was then murdered in some sort of revenge attack. Hess now faces extradition to the UK for further questioning.
COMMENTS
Recent student murders.
"He was from Suffolk and was about to begin a Physics Degree.
"The two stabbed french students did a project on Bird Flu
"The two Albanian women stabbed, one was a student.
"Any more student stabbings?"
The two chinese students in Manchester (who were involved in international football betting fraud).
Wasn't there a pair killed in the south west (?Bristol?) too? Or was that the Albanians?
Normal behaviour?
If you were a complete shit to someone for a period of time and then they died, you would feel bad when you found out they had died.
This might cause you to want to speak to that person close family and apologise for the way you behaved before that person died. That does not automatically responsible for the death.
I do hope they have some other evidence other that a facebook apology ?
Paris Hilton - Chief of police
According to the Independent:
Part of the actual note posted to Facebook read:
"I will pray for you, Jo. You must be suffering unbelievable pains. I'm sorry for having caused so much trouble lately. I hope you won't lose all your hope. We will be there for you."
This sounds like a message of sympathy from someone feeling guilty about recent arguments with the victim to me.
Relevance?
How is it relevant that the dead guy is a gamer?
FYI, the series is called "Advance" Wars.
Re: Evidence
Far as I gather from very little and quick research, for an arrest to happen in Germany, a judge must make out an arrest warrant, which he can only do if sufficient evidence exists to bring a case to trial within a limited period of time. A suspect can only be held by police without such an arrest warrant for max. 48 hours. I can imagine that the requirements for extradition will exceed what is given by the evidence of two identical, rather innocent-sounding messages sent through electronic media...
