A teen murderer and rapist who confessed his crime in World of Warcraft to a friend (because he thought it would be safe to talk there) has been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 10 years by a court in British Columbia. The 16-year-old, Kruse Wellwood, raped and murdered a classmate named Kim Proctor, who rejected his advances. He attempted to set up an alibi later by sending an instant message to the missing girl asking her why she never showed up to meet him. Investigators claimed to have gathered the equivalent of 1.4 billion sheets of paper evidence that made it fairly easy for them to unravel any defense he might have.
This included a printout of an instant message Kruse sent a friend after he and his accomplice raped and tortured Proctor and disposed of her body in a freezer located in the garage of his own house. While trying to put the body into the freezer an unnamed friend kept texting him. Later he replied to the friend with the message "Sorry, the freezer was jumping around."
He later confessed to murdering Proctor in a World of Warcraft chat session with a "girlfriend," as chronicled by Vanity Fair:
With Kim’s death consuming the town and the local news, Kruse became increasingly paranoid about leaving any more evidence online. But he couldn’t resist the urge to share his story with someone he trusted. He was afraid of using MSN, but he thought the chat logs in World of Warcraft were less likely to be saved. On March 23, five days after Kim’s murder, he told his gamer girlfriend in Halifax on MSN that he had something urgent to tell her, but that he wanted to do it over World of Warcraft chat instead. Once inside World of Warcraft, he confessed to the crime. Back on MSN, he sent her links to the news reports as backup. The girl was shocked, but she eventually replied in the way he no doubt expected. “I’ll always be here, no matter what you do,” she wrote.
Wellwood and his accomplice couldn't overcome the mountain of evidence that pointed to them as the ones who committed the crime. Ultimately they both would pled guilty to first-degree murder and indignity to human remains. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 10 years.
Update: We corrected the part of the story relating to "one billion sheets of paper evidence" for the sake of accuracy. We apologize for the error.
Source: Wired
Comments
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
Anybody else actually read the Vanity Fair article? Kim Proctor was someone who had the misfortune of not only being damaged, but lacking the ability to see what kind of sick people she was socializing with. Happens too often in this world.
What also happens too often is how fucked up kids like Kruse and Cam can just float under the radar. They displayed signs of their depravity, it's just that no one was paying enough attention. I think it's time countries started embracing a policy of mandatory psyche evaluations for their citizens. You want your kid to go to school? They're going to get seen by a shrink. Ms. Proctor, and a lot of other people, might still be alive if Canada, the U.S., and other places had such policies.
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
The funny thing is, WoW chat is monitored more heavily than msn...
Treasure bin: Cult Hits, chea pass gaming options, and rants about gaming in general
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
"Kruse left 1.4 billion sheets of paper evidence"
Really?
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
It can get a bit tricky to sort out the journalism and facts from the editorializing and hyperbole around here. Just roll with it.
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
"Soon, police had enough evidence to secure the necessary judicial authorization to monitor and analyze Kruse’s and Cam’s online activities. Keeping Kruse and Cam under close surveillance, the police bugged their homes, their cell phones, and even the gazebo where they hung out in the park. Through forensic analysis of the boys’ computers and cell phones, they dug up their Google and Wikipedia searches, as well as old transcripts of texts and instant messages. In total, the Tech Crimes Unit amassed the equivalent of 1.4 billion sheets of paper on the two."
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
That's nice, but the key words "equivalent of" were left out of the GP article, which then went on to say that those sheets of paper included a printout of an IM conversation, further cementing the idea that it was 1.4 billion actual sheets of paper. The best you could say about this is that it was sloppy quoting leading to misunderstanding of the facts and a false impression of gross hyperbole.
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
Good point. The article has been updated with that clarification.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
That actually was my question, hence the "Really?". Thanks to all for the clarification.
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
does is surprise you that GP left out a rather important fact? I know we all remember the days when the articles from GP could still be considered journalism, but they are gone.
Now lets wait for the "wannabe editor" to jump in here and defend yet another sloppy mistake.
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
"Now lets wait for the "wannabe editor" to jump in here and defend yet another sloppy mistake."
Well, that wasn't nice. Or true.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Teen Murderer Confess to Crime in World of Warcraft Chat
Yeah, we get it. You say it every fucking day. Petition this site to add a banner that says "SeanB hates this site", just so we're clear.