Xbox slayings trial begins today

Death Penalty has two bonuses:

1. No more damage to the gene pool.
2. No more government spending on maintaining psychos and retards like them alive.

Slay them.

that's just... wrong.

it's costs only 150 to buy brand new XBox now.... yet SIX people were beaten to death "because" of it?

so the four attackers placed the value of life at... $35 a person.

i feel that obviously, they just wanted ANY excuse to inflict harm on another human being.

darn... bad math. it's $25. can someone correct that comment, and remove this one?

Without getting too political, Boots I'm afraid I have to completely disagree with you. 'Gene pool'? Seriously? You have got to admit that social conditioning has far greater influence on these individuals than an individual's genes. It is society's fault mainly for the produce of these individuals. While there is an element of free choice, genetics has little to do with it.

Secondly, prison doesn't work. They people need help, not time and time in prison. There are my left wing values.

Wait, so this male, who lent his Xbox to a female, wanted his Xbox back so he killed her with a bat to get it?

Jesus Christ.

The story's more complicated than just a loan. The girl recovered it while cleaning up her grandparents' house, where the ringleader had squatted before being kicked out.

I'm generally against the death penalty in most circumstances, but surely this is a case where death is called for. These murderers can be redeemed in the eyes of their God, but certainly not in society.

Slay them indeed.

What I also find retarded is that the victims actually wasted their time (long before this incident) on dealing with this wackos. Why didn't they give them the Xbox initially if it was theirs anyway? Or even if it wasn't, who cares? That bewilders me. As someone said above, it's only 179.99 or something like that.

what a tragic waste of life.

this is just a really sad story for everyone involved but I also agree that the type of person who would beat someone to death over something as small as an xbox would have done it anyway over anything, there just pyscho.

I've always been a fan of an eye for an eye. I say give bats to the families of the departed and put them and the killers in a room for a while.

If everyone took an eye for an eye then everyone would be blind

@ Ian,

I don't think boots was saying they should have time in prison, or that prison works. In fact, he said putting them to death saves money speant on prison time

Squatters who work at Burger King and have no permanent place of residence can still somehow manage to afford an Xbox? These are great sales figures for Microsoft when even the poor are compelled to squander what few bits they have on an Xbox, despite not having a home or telelvision or electricity. That speaks volumes about the sort of mental retardation on display here. Where in the hell would they get the idea to beat people to death over a stolen item? Where is that sort of behavior acceptable?

Ok, point retracted about the prison.

The Xbox was probably stuffed full of drugs. Get real.

Ian Bowden: "It is society's fault mainly for the produce of these individuals."

Oh right, its my fault now. You sound like Jack Thompson blaming a programmer for a kid on the rampage. Right, somehow it is the fault of the enviroment because in this day an age, no one is responsible for their own actions. It is always someone else.

"The victims, some of whom were sleeping, did not resist the attack, which was charged by Victorino's insistence upon reclaiming his Xbox from Belanger."

This wasn't just about retrieving an XBox. These people are just sick.

I pray that the Joystiq community doesn't represent the nation at large. This 'eye for an eye' mentality does no good. The fact that we call ourselves a civilized society and promote the death penatly is ludicrous in my eyes.

And actually, studies show that the death penalty costs more the life without parole. I'd love to see the studies concluding otherwise.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108&scid=7

Ian Bowden:
Correction: If everyone took an eye for an eye then no one would be stupid enough to take the eye in the first place.


Religion works on the basis that you are a god fearing individual. Why can't we make it so law enforcement is fearful? It certianly would cut down on crime...

Anthony,

How is this money spent on the death penalty if noone was actually put to death. This was money spent because people refused to let people on death row be put to death.

"And actually, studies show that the death penalty costs more the life without parole."


Maybe, but it is not about cost. It is about preventing crime. Most places that dont have the death penalty dont have life either. When you hear europeans saying life in prison they actually mean 15years. In the US 25= life. In other words if i want to kill someone i will take them to the EU and do it since i will get out in 15 years. Then i could just do it again and serve another 15 years. I guess that is how much a human life is worth.

In fact, the best places to kill someone in premeditated murder (like this case) is in the EU or a non death penalty state because they are so lax.

"They people need help, not time and time in prison. There are my left wing values."

And when do you just give up on people, determine that they'll never be a normal part of society, no matter how much time and "help" they get, and remove them.
I say when they kill six people over a $150 console, it's time to just admit that no amount of "help" will help them, and it's time to just remove them from where they can hurt others.

As for removing them from the gene pool, you're looking at his statement too literally. Preventing these people from ever breeding by putting them in jail for life would prevent them from raising. They wouldn't be able to pass their warped values on.

@Boots
The death penalty costs about 2 million dollars more than life in prision.

Wouldnt be suprised if these guys had ties with organised crime or where high on meth. Most violent crimes like these are done by drug abusers.

This is rediculous. For six people to be murdered over an x box is diabolical and those responsible deserve death. While I do believe that every action can be forgiven by God, I realise that not everyone believes that, so it should be broken down farther. Through the direct actions of a few people with bats, a few more people now don't have a chance to redeem their own lives and the events that led up to the murder.

bottom line: irrational people don't deserve to be placated and coddled. once deviancy is dumbed down, the definitions of evil and unlawful acts are stretched eventually to a point of hypocrisy.

If I were trying to get by on minimum wage, and had to squat somewhere because I couldn't afford rent... I dare say that "a $150 console" would be a lot more valuable than say if I was making $200k/year. I don't think making relative comparisons regarding material items is the issue though.

Murder is murder. Except for ‘maybe’ self defense, there is no reasonable excuse.

I don’t buy the ‘eye for an eye’ clause either. We don’t have the death penalty in Canada but we do have a much lower murder rate than the U.S.

However, I do think a valid question is how do we help these criminals… and what do we do when all the help in the world will do no good.

This is rediculous. For six people to be murdered over an x box is diabolical and those responsible deserve death. While I do believe that every action can be forgiven by God, I realise that not everyone believes that, so it should be broken down farther. Through the direct actions of a few people with bats, a few more people now don't have a chance to redeem their own lives and the events that led up to the murder.

bottom line: irrational people don't deserve to be placated and coddled. once deviancy is dumbed down, the definitions of evil and unlawful acts are stretched eventually to a point of hypocrisy.

nah, if you want to kill someone, if you think you are definitely going to get caught, do it in Japan. There's no death penalty, the prison walls are made of paper, you get to eat sushi and sashimi, and as a barbarian gaijin, you are automatically tougher than any other prisoner in there, so you don't need to worry about the whole sodomy thing.

I had quite a long post typed out, until Safari crashed when surfing myspace. Oh the embarassment. Anyhow, I don't want to go into as much depth as I did before.

Firstly, MosquitoControl. You are questioning when we should give up on rehabing people, and I presume by removing them u mean kill them? I don't personally agree with the death penalty and am proud to live in the UK where capital punishment doesn't exist. When someone commits murder in this country, or any significant crime they go to prison. During this time, social alienation occurs. The criminals aren't taught values that they lack, and aren't educated. Subsequently the level of people who end back up in prison is concernly high. Therefore to answer your question, the person that commits the crime should be in rehab for the sentence and receive rehab to integrate into soceity better afterwards. That is a tiny summary of what i think. A lot of people commit crimes because their life isn't worth living, so I believe that instead of making prison worse and tougher for the criminals, we should focus far more on making the outside world much better and worth living in compared to prison. Whilst I appreciate some individuals may be beyond rehab, if they are that much of a threat to society then they wouldn't be let out of prison anyway.

Secondly minus_273. Culture is the software of the mind. Not everyone thinks as rationally as me or you. I'm not for a moment suggesting that there isn't no room for free choice, but values, beliefs, and rationality are taught at a ground level. It's hard one to explain. I've been taught it for a while now in my Bachelor of Science, and some individuals are unable to conceive of others suffering as me and you can. None the less I agree with you that there is free choice, but I think you weight it too heavily.

While I do not believe that this eye for an eye routine and allowing loved ones of victims to exact their revenge on criminals I do believe that warehousing them for years is not the answer either. I believe that when you commit crimes against society you forfeit your rights as a human being. I think these people should be humanly put down. Just like a dog that has rabies or other illness that causes it to act out aggressively. Unfortunately there are too many soft hearted whining cry babies in America to allow that. My other idea is that since it is very expensive to warehouse these people here in America where they have far too many rights as far as I am concerned. We should sub contract our worst of the worst criminals to the Russian prison system. I am sure they could care for these individuals much cheaper then we do here in the US. I am also sure that after ten or fifteen years in a Gulag most prisoners would not be so excited to do things that would land them back there.

Next I believe that all prisoners should be expecting to earn a living behind bars just like they would have to in the regular world. This would provide the basic training and reprogramming that these individuals need. If they refuse to work they should not get fed and thrown outside exposed to whatever elements are to that climate. This will provide a basic foundation for their reintroduction into society, and reinforce the idea of needing to work and be a productive member of society so that you take care of yourself. If they work in prison they should receive food and shelter, and a small amount of money should be set aside for their release. They can be taught skill sets that should help them land a job once out. All this sitting around and being fed better then most of the free and working population is ridiculous.

But this clown who kills people for an Xbox, needs to be put down.

You know what people we are missing the point, they were squatters working at burger king that valued a video game system so much they were willing to kill for it. What you have to ask yourself when you read that is: How bad is their life when a 179 dollar video game console is worth killing for. This is not the first story of such inhumane acts over a game system that I have heard of either, I think I can remember a grandmother was robbed the day she bought her xbox 360.

Yet we only think about it right now because it is linked to video games, but this trend has, one been around forever. Two it is growing as technology becomes more and more an important status symbol in society. Last as society become hard and hard to survive in people are willing to do more horrific deeds to get what we want. But we never plant the blame in where it truely lies no, We blame genetics, or poor up bringing, and when we really want to ignore any facts we blame media itself.

The truth is as a society and I do mean a global society we are far to ready to profit off of the misery of others, just to have what we want. I can't count the amount of times, I have read blogs on joystiq engadget and many other forums of opinion and thought that have said "DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THE PRICE CAUSE YOU ARE POOR!" or "THE ONLY REASON YOU HATE THIS SYSTEM IS CAUSE YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT!" now the most popular one "A REAL GAMER BUYS EVERY SYSTEM!". The truth is people are working harder and earning less, bills are being voted on in congress to cut fincial aids and the avenues that people seek to live a better life, and socities answer to this is "WELL YOUR POOR YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!" What do you then expect to happen, when people can't earn what they want yet they are working their life away?

I am not giving these maniacs an excuse but many times as gamers and citizens of a global economy we don't look beyond our door when we think. The simple hoobies that bring people happiness and escape are sky rocketting out of their reach, and it isn't getting any better. People trampled and stampeded over one another just for a chance and a refurbished, not a brand new mac laptop, ask yourself why would they do this and the asnwer becomes clear. When seeing a chance at something they figured they could never afford actually working a full days labor they became more like hungry beast at a scrape of meat than human beings.

You want to blame somebody, blame governemtns over taxing people, blame corporations interested more in gouging every last dime out of the consumers pocket rather than make a good product. Blame companies set on the exploitation of their workers so they can make a buck, while putting small stores and community business into bankruptcy just to meet a profit margin. Last blame us, society for accepting this and going along with it, but that won't happen.

We will blame it on the gene pool, and being poor, and consider this a singular incident of insanity when we knows drugs, car theft, and other examples of violence has become very prevalent. In reality we don't care that he beat these people to death We just care that a video game system was linked to it, and how that may hinder us from buying the next PS3 or Xbox 360, and that is what is truely sad about something like this.

Wow, I am finding it tough to swallow all this stuff. OK where do I start. Here, I support the death penalty for murder's. "Florida would save $51 million each year by punishing all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole, according to estimates by the Palm Beach Post" that is incredably skewed because..."Based on the 44 executions Florida has carried out since 1976, that amounts to an approximate cost of $24 million for each execution. This finding takes into account the relatively few inmates who are actually executed, as well as the time and effort expended on capital defendants who are tried but convicted of a lesser murder charge, and those whose deathe sentences are overturned on appeal. (Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000)". The reason why it seems so high per person is because of all the court cases,in addition to time in prison spent, is accrued. It doesn't cost the stated 24 million to kill one person. I doubt it costs $240 to kill a person. Here is the reall math about prison and florida. The average prison population in floriday as of June 30th 2005 is 84,901 (http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/inmates.html)

The average cost per inmate equals $18,108 annually (http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/cost.html). Do your fancy math dance and come up with the number of us dollars that the florida prison system alone costs us taxpayers.... $1,537,387,308. Let that sink in..... That is only for one state. Do your own research on the other ones.

I agree with Jim N and disagree with Mr. Ian Bowden. Rehab? a murderer? So we put them through the miserable experience of going to jail and being alienated, not to mention just the stigma of going to prison alone in america, and they are supposed to come out.... better? Yea... I don't know why people are against the death penalty because I find it far less humane to let somebody rot in a cage than to give them the death penalty. For other crimes I agree, there needs to be better programs to rehabilitate these individuals. And somehow remove the stigma of Ex-con in the workplace, which I don't see happening really.
And Zsavior, really..... Blame money hungry corporations for the murderers of our society?

They live in the US.
Unless I misread, this is a trial not a sentencing.
To the one that pleaded guilty, he has life.
But to all those saying "Slay Them", Please remember we have due process for a reason.

While I, by far, do not condone the actions, I feel that there could always be a bit of the story we don't know that proves one of the other three innocent.

Here is Cost of lethal injection.
Sodium Thiopental (lethal dose - sedates person)

Pancuronium Bromide (muscle relaxant-collapses diaphragm and lungs)

Potassium Chloride (stops heart beat)

The offender is usually pronounced dead approximately 7 minutes after the lethal injection begins.

Cost per execution for drugs used : $86.08

so, not saying that we should just trying to show comparisons, to put 84,901 inmates to death would cost about, $7,308,278.08... one time fee!! This is, of course, excluding court cost and the 11 years average of time served before execution. So the real cost to for the death penalty is much much lower than the cost of the life sentance.

Just goes to show you don't fuck with a mans console system. ha

Dude, i can't believe that people are trying to come up with excuses for them! THEY KILLED SIX PEOPLE OVER AN XBOX!!! There is absolutely no excuse for that, no matter how poor you are. Being poor shouldn't lower your value of life. 25 years in jail does not make up for six lifetimes, lives ended over nothing. Seriously, I would buy this guy a new 'Box, rather than hear about six people getting beaten to death in their sleep.

BLARGH, this is like the political discussions I had to sit through in high school.

Executing is always cheaper, as you can always just take them out behind the prison and shoot them. Forget the lethal dose, just use a 25 cent bullet. The only reason the costs get high is because of state and federal appeals that are exploited by lawyers to delay the execution. If appeals were eliminated in cases like this where there is no doubt as to who did it then the cost would be far less than a one year sentence.

Forget eye for an eye, let's stop wasting our resources on people that choose to be career criminals. I say extend the death penalty to gang members and second time sex offenders.

Oh and to that "it's society's fault" nonsense, these murderers knew exactly the risk they were taking when they decided to do this. People are not automatons, they know what they are doing. Hang em high.

@ fawazr

Please Jack, stop hiding. I've been reading your posts all day and I can't beleive no one has called you out yet. New tactic? Pose as one of us and try to get us thinking like you?

So Zsavior corporations are evil for making these guys want the xbox but the thugs aren't evil for killing over an xbox instead of simply taking it from them? Why didn't they just steal it?

You really are one of the fucking looniest liberals I have ever come across. I have met some crazy moonbat leftists but you really take the cake. Take your blame game and shove it deep into that vagina of yours.

Don't put political "left-wing" in this! I'm a "California Liberal", and I'm telling you, these 3 dudes should Fry! They MURDERED 6 people over an f__king X-Box? No one in the group came to the conclusion, that "this is wrong" or "we should just steal it and than leave"? Answer; No they didn't.

This was a simple misunderstanding about property, that turned into a horrible tragedy. One that could have easily been avoided.

I'd rather have my shit stolen, than be dead! I'm sure the 6 murdered people would agree -- if they could.

We got some dumb asses in here who are obviously from California. From the sounds of them they were probably on O.J.'s jury as well.

These guys killed somebody. It's their fault, they're responsible for it, and they should die for it. If they can't pay the fine, they shouldn't have done the crime.

What's with all this bull shit about "society is the reason" or "they weren't at fault, it's the times we live in that caused this" blah blah blah shut the fuck up. This is what's wrong with society, oh it's not my fault. The hell it isn't.

When you were a kid and you did something wrong, what happened? Your parents grounded you or busted your ass. Where you able to pull "but momma, society caused me to do this, this, and this, it's not my fault." Nope, you did something wrong and you were punished. These guys did something wrong and they should be punished.

The only thing that's wrong with society is the dumb asses in here trying to stick up for these psychos.

Jesus Christ THEY KILLED SOMEBODY and you want to put them in fucking rehab!?! I got a better idea, why don't we send them to your house and let you deal with them. If you don't want them in prison or to get their balls fried we'll stick them with you. Sound good? You can save the precious criminals and release them back into society.

stick em on an island, no way on or off. use, i dunno, radar to make sure no one leaves/enters. stick a couple of say lions/human-eating animals on it and let them all live together. they have to live with nothing, and survive. now that is punishment

a modern day 1787-1868 australia

and ill add my view on death penalty. im from UK and as u know, we dont have it. i say bring it back. the only problem is killing someone innocent (pretty sure thats why it got removed from here). but the guys pleading guilty (hes admittin it, if thats not enough proof...), do it cheap, shoot him or get a hold of some heroin from those busts they do and O.D him. or send him to that island

Clearly I'm a dumbass, a dumbass who has higher education qualifications in politics. Although I acknowledge this doesn't make my views correct, it certainly gives me a foundation of knowledge to challenge individuals on the criminal justice system which I have studied the past 30 years of. In the UK.

To everyone who has slaughtered me for saying that these individuals should be put in rehab, and then released should read my posts again. You have jumped to conclusions. I didn't state directly that people who commit murder should go back into society. I think the opposite. However I also mentioned significant crimes. By significant crimes I mean theft etc that all result in prison. These individuals are the ones that require rehab. You can't expect such individuals to see prison as punishment, nor to pick up new skills and bond with other prisoners. Prison doesn't work as a deterrant.

Prison only works in removing individuals such as these people from society. This isn't to mean that these people shouldn't receive rehab while they are in prison, possibly for life. They can be taught new skills and values.

Yes I'm left of centre, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe in life. I only believe in life since it removes these individuals from society, not because prison is a deterrant for other criminals.

A quick google search on Troy Victorino reveals that he has spent 8 years in jail since 1993, 6 of them for beating somebody to near-death. The time he already spent in jail clearly did nothing to rehabilitate him, so what good will another 25 years do?

Somebody needs to question why this story is being touted as the 'XBox slayings', when it is actually more about the 'psycho who should have been spotted earlier finally killed someone, oh, and there was an XBox in the house slayings.'

I am very dissapointed when I read about this story. Nobody is mentioning how much of a bastard Victorino was before this. The spin is clearly meant to make people think the XBox is what mattered here. The amazing thing is that people are falling for it.

PLEASE, people, use your brains. Question EVERYTHING you read, aprticularly when videogames are a part of the story. Dig a little deeper. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but something about this story doesn't smell right. Why is the focus on the XBox, rather than on Victorino himself? This guy is a nasty piece of work, as anyone who can do even the TINIEST bit of digging can discover.

In 1957 in a part of Canada (wont tell you where), my father used to run with a gang. He had a friend who was basically the really crazy one. Eventually a judge decided that this friend just wasn't getting the small sentences he had been given so he sentenced him to 18 LASHES.

Now my dad later in life had seen the 'machine' that gave the lashes (imagine a baseball pitching machine, but instead of a metal arm with ball, it was leather whips).. After the 'lashes' were imposed, my father (and the whole gang for that matter) NEVER saw this crazy friend for YEARS. Seems he moved away, got a job/married. He basically said it was the MOST painful thing in his life and he NEVER wanted to EVER feel that again. Funny, but I guess it worked.

Now if they could only do this with early offenders, I wonder how many would repeat offend? But I digress...

As for the scumbags, I hope they DO get life in prison. Just because the amount of sod.omy / tor.ture they're gonna experience is just too poetic (karma anyone?). I've had some friends over the years do hard time, trust me when I say what you see on TV is NOT the real prison... YOU DONT WANNA GO THERE. You may be big and tough, but 8-10 guys WILL butt nail you DAILY (and face nail as well)... Death sentence for them is TOOOO good....

Anyways, ya'll have a nice day..

Peace out...

Thats just sad to hear.

6 people and a dog ... yeah, they killed the dog that was there. I'm a property manager, and a company that rents from me does crime scene clean-up -- they said it was horrific; I got some nasty details that I didn't need to know.