While the media has occasionally scapegoated adventure gaming(see 'Monterey News Story Ties RPGs to Assault') and small time Savonarolas like Jack Chick and 'Dr.' Thomas Radecki regularly castigate Dungeons & Dragons as dangerous and satanic (see 'Jack Chick Takes on Games Again'), the lawyer for a Detroit man accused of slashing a co-worker to death with a homemade samurai sword may be the first barrister to come up with a 'D&D defense,' claiming his client was a psychotic schizophrenic obsessed with D&D. 'He played Dungeons and Dragons and was obsessive with games of fantasy,' the attorney was quoted as saying. 'He became his fantasy. He was a ninja doing an honorable thing.'
Actually fantasy role-playing is a major element in both the defense and prosecution arguments since prosecutors are attempting to portray the incident as a simple revenge killing perpetrated by James Flemons because his co-workers bullied him largely 'over his obsession with fantasy-based games.'
The exotic details of this crime, which include the apparent fact that Flemons provided his victim 'with a piece of metal in a chivalrous manner as if challenging him to a duel' before skewering him, guarantee that this murder (as well as its perpetrator's links to D&D) will receive plenty of publicity when Court TV covers the trial live on Court TV Extra.