Man found guilty of stabbing fellow gamer 86 times

Not one member of his family even came to support him in court.

David Heiss, an online gamer, was found guilty Monday of murdering fellow gamer Matthew Pyke, whom he had met on the Advanced Wars online chat forum WarCentral.com.

Heiss had become obsessed with Pyke's girlfriend, Joanna Witton, who was also an online gamer.

Last September, Heiss traveled from his home in Germany to Nottingham, England, where he stabbed Pyke 86 times in an attack that was frenzied, remorseless, and cold-blooded. As Pyke was dying, he tried to write the killer's name on the side of an old computer.

"(Heiss) has taken it upon himself to pre-plan this whole murder as if he were a strategist on his own computer, really...on his war game," Detective Chief Inspector Tony Heydon told the BBC.

Nottingham, where the murder took place.

(Credit: CC Riley Roxx/Flickr)

Surveillance footage revealed that after the murder, Heiss had worn his victim's baseball cap on his way back to Germany, having also taken his victim's shoes. Police found a fake suicide note, purporting to be from Pyke, in Heiss's suitcase.

In the wake of the verdict, psychologists have theorized that Heiss found it difficult to distinguish between his online world and the real one. He lived with his grandmother and had very little contact with his parents.

Professor Keith Browne, a forensic psychologist from the University of Nottingham, told the Guardian: "The underlying cause of this person's insane jealousy will be a fear of abandonment, having been rejected by either his parents or girlfriends."

He added: "The problem with the virtual world is that people will take risks that they wouldn't do in the real world. People say things in jest at a distance that they wouldn't say in the real world...They want to turn their fantasies into reality and it is dangerous. But it is only a very small minority we are talking about."

The judge ordered that Heiss should serve a minimum of 18 years in jail.

[fwjs28]

86 times...thats an odd number of times to be stabbed (just my random thought)

[legend_ary]

85 or 87 would be odd. 86 is even ;)

[M C]

I kind of have an issue with a columnist going off-topic to address some issue they see themselves "on top of." This is supposed to be a humor column, and straight coverage of this horrific story seems to completely undercut the audience the column has cultivated, as evidenced by the comments above, which seem to play off the column's previous personality and are thus wildly inappropriate for this story.

If you have insight another columnist doesn't (and by looking at this, you don't add much not available in the wire service version), perhaps you could make this a guest article on some other area of the site - not the aforementioned humor column.

You'd think CBS would have impressed the CNet staff with that journalistic principle...

[Software_Lover]

He wrote out a fake suicide note? How the hell is anyone supposed to see a man with 86 stab wounds and think "It must have been suicide!"

[monkeyfun14]

Thats the stupid part about it LMFAO

[pjhenry1216]

To be fair, I believe the suicide note was found in the murderer's suitcase. I'm guessing that he decided not to use the note after considering the method used to commit the murder.

[LaSepultura]

This story is clown shoes.

"Weiss had become obsessed with Pyke's girlfriend"
Who is Weiss?

"The problem with the virtual world is that people will take risks that they wouldn't do in the real world."
What virtual world? Advanced Wars is a freaking NintendoDS game.

[myles taylor]

Well if you had followed the story at all, Weiss is the victim.

Advanced Wars is also a wargames forum run by Weiss and his girlfriend.

[happyguy77]

Wait, what? I don't even see any mention of a "Weiss" in the story, unless there was previously a typo that's already been corrected.

For the record:
- David Heiss = the stabber (who apparently became obsessed with the victim's girlfriend)
- Matthew Pyke = the victim
- Joanna Whitton = the victim's girlfriend

[Mr. Dee]

I guess bad sport would be putting lightly. My suggestion to that murderer? Get a life...sentence in jail for being a MORON!

[isockyourpuppets]

"Man found guilty of stabbing fellow gamer 86 times"

"Man found guilty of stabbing friend 86 times"

whats the difference?

a couple of hits due quote farming controversy around games.

[walwebster]

<<a couple of hits due quote farming controversy around games.>>

What language is this? And if it's meant to be English , what does it mean?

[Balfor]

"(Heiss) has taken it upon himself to pre-plan this whole murder as if he were a strategist on his own computer, really...on his war game,..."

"...psychologists have theorized that Heiss found it difficult to distinguish between his online world and the real one."

"The problem with the virtual world is that people will take risks that they wouldn't do in the real world. People say things in jest at a distance that they wouldn't say in the real world.."
_________

Yeah yeah yeah -- all that 'the virtual world made me do it" crap is getting old, even though it is a mainstay for Rupert Murdoch-style trash journalism.

I wonder who is living in a virtual reality? The gamers -- or the reporters and psychologists?

How about this for reality: "Evil psychotic loser moron murdered someone he was jealous of because, quite simply, he is an evil psychotic loser moron." ?

lol

[hassan_bin_sober]

Last time I did that I got to tired to continue. ...Only got 56 in before I got a cramp. This is the kind of crap that happens when you deny folks guns!

[fgfgVCV]

86x is some kind of frenzy. What's that worth in terms of time? 1.5-2 minutes of solid stabbing? I can't even remotely imagine the emotional state that would be required to pull that off.