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April 1 2002, Volume 2, Issue 1.1

MURDER RELATED TO BIZARRE GAME!!!!!

By Gordon Olmstadt-Dean

Teen Slayer was obsessed with game which glorifies and dehumanizes violence

George T. Wilson of Pennsauken, New Jersey, seemed like any other High School Student. Certainly the signs were there. Wilson was quiet and reserved. He seldom spoke out in class. He had few friends, and those he did befriend were often misfits, other shy classmates.

Wilson murdered his friend, Joseph Brown, the scion of a wealthy local family, with a pistol outside a local fast food restaurant, shooting him several times.

School Counselor Donna Seating had expressed concern over Wilson. "He wasn't involved in athletics. His grades were good, but he seemed distracted. Then we allowed those kids to charter their club. They played that game constantly. I'd heard of it but I didn't realize what it was all about. It is about killing, pure and simple. It teaches kids to think of killing in a cold remorseless sense."

Pastor John Wilkesbury of the Pennsauken Second Church of Christ gave more insight. "I had told them repeatedly about the dangers of that game, and even passed out some pamphlets on its dangers. It is a thoroughly evil game. In it, children are taught not only to view human beings exclusively for their utility in killing others, or protecting them, but are taught to see the whole world in paranoid terms. You are always under attack. This game of medieval fantasy encourages children to seek refuge in a castle, and to solve their problems by constant aggression and by manipulating others.

"George was not the most involved student in the club that played that game," said Principal Meyer Briggs. "But it doesn't take much exposure to that sort of mentality to turn someone into a cold blooded killer. The game has medieval ethics. Some people may try to make it seem romantic because it depicts characters like Knights, and even religious figures, but when you look at it is about nothing but relentless slaying…it is kill or be killed. I should never have let them charter that club. But we didn't really understand what the game was about."

Though parents and neighbors have little doubt, police have not been able to firmly connect Wilson's actions to his obsession with a school gaming club.

"We are looking at a few other issues. Wilson's girlfriend had broken up with him about a week before the incident, standing him up to attend the prom with Brown. And Wilson also believed that Brown had cheated him out of six hundred dollars - his entire summer savings - by selling him a secondhand car which broke down almost immediately after he bought it. Brown had also recently beaten him in a competition for a scholarship to Princeton University, and as Wilson's family was not financially well off, it seemed unlikely he'd be able to attend a reputable college."

Neighbors however were more aware of the truth. "That boy was corrupted by that terrible game," said Roxanne Hargis, who lived in the apartment across the hall from Wilson. "I knew him from when he was a little boy, his mom would bring him in to visit when his father had started to throw stuff around because he was drunk. If my water was working we sometimes made macaroni and cheese together. They were a good family and his parents brought him up right. But they got him into that game. It teaches you to see everyone else as someone for you to manipulate, even to sacrifice."

Principal Meyer Briggs said that East Pennsauken High School had taken action to keep other students from the tragic experience that turned Wilson into a murderer. "The Pennsauken High School Chess Club has been banned forever," said Briggs, "and all Chess and Chess equipment have been confiscated. We are considering requests to hold a ceremonial burning of this Chess paraphernalia, and the City Council is working on an ordnance to make sure that it isn't sold here. Some people have suggested we look into issues like our Guidance Department's failure to note seventeen years of family violence, or the immense financial discrepancies within our student body, and resultant social issues. Or even that we give some credence to the fact that these students are at a volatile age when emotional issues can seem much larger than they actually are. But we are not going to be fooled by that sort of rhetoric or psychological doubletalk. We are going to strike at the core of the vicious and brutal game that causes this sort of behavior