Four guys were playing Madden together when a fight broke out over cheating and one of them is now dead.
Four men in Planeview, Kansas, outside Wichita, were playing a nice game of EA’s football sim Madden NFL 11 on a PS3 when the evening took a very nasty turn. Allegedly, 22-year-old Luke German was severely beaten by his three friends after a fight broke out. It’s not clear who was cheating or exactly why they were fighting, but German ended up dead and police have charged his friends with murder. Two men were arrested, and police are currently searching for a third suspect.
After some investigating, the police believe that the fight raged out into the front yard of the house where German was staying. The fighting continued back inside the house and then returned to the front yard before it ended with German face down.
Lt. Ken Landwehr is in charge of the Wichita Police Department’s homicide department, and he thinks he knows what caused the altercation. “Somebody was accused of cheating,” Landwehr said.
He said that police found German lying in front of a house and, although he had no external injuries, he wasn’t breathing. An autopsy revealed that German had “severe internal injuries,” which were the result of repeated beatings, perhaps from a blunt instrument like a sledgehammer or pipe.
Two men were arrested on site, as well as a 20-year-old woman who might have helped the third suspect escape. That suspect is the only one named by police, Benjamin Redgate, and he allegedly sped from the scene on a purple, women’s mountain bike. Redgate, 22, is still wanted by the Wichita Police Department.
There’s nothing fun about cheating, especially when you’re playing videogames with your friends. If one of my friends did something that I considered cheating in a game of Mario Kart or FIFA, then we’re going to have some words. But the next action that I’m going to take is not to pick up a pipe and beat my friend for cheating. That’s just crazy.
Source: The Wichita Eagle
Published: Nov 2, 2010 08:24 pm