As if the police don’t have enough to do in this world with all the crime, murder and corruption. Now they’re arresting people for killing video game characters!

A Japanese woman who had such a sad existence that she was ‘married’ in a video game to another character (sorry, her character was married, but I’m sure she didn’t see a difference) found one day that her virtual husband had left her character. The game was ‘Maple Story’, a popular Japanese role playing video game, and her character’s husband, another sad guy’s character, was controlled by a 33-year-old office worker. When his character divorced her character, she hacked into the game (by hacked, they probably mean guessed his piss obvious password) and deleted his character.

He then reported the ‘death’ of his year old character to police, who rather than call him an utter timewaster and arrest him, investigated the virtual killing. The woman was arrested for ‘murder’ and faces a possible jail term of up to five years!

The woman, a piano teacher, stated:

I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.

The game has over 50 million players in Japan and allows people to buy items through the virtual shop.
Police said after the arrest:

The case surfaced after a 33-year-old office worker in Sapporo, northern Japan, complained to police about the loss of his avatar, which he had “raised” for more than a year.

The woman was charged with illegal access onto a computer and manipulating electronic data.

What a total waste of police time!

Clive Bellmore