Dustin Lynch's mug shot
Posted on 12/12/2003 12:20:53 AM PST by yonif
Though an alleged teen killer claims a popular violent video game had nothing to do with his murdering a young girl, the victims father and others are convinced Grand Theft Auto III inspired the boy to bludgeon and stab his friend to death.
Dustin Lynch's mug shot
Dustin Lynch allegedly stabbed JoLynn Mishne in the side with kitchen knife after bashing her with a bedpost. Her father, Mickey, found her in a pool of blood on her bed with a pile of clothes heaped on top of her.
The then-15-year-old Lynch, a runaway, had been staying with the Mishnes in Medina, Ohio, for about a week after JoLynn, a high-school junior, begged her father to let him stay with the family, the Cleveland Scene weekly reports.
During his week's stay with the Mishnes in the fall of 2002, Lynch reportedly played the video game GTA III for hours at a time. It is a violent crime fantasy in which players earn rewards for assaults, carjackings, and murder, the Scene reports. The game has been highly successful, winning numerous game-of-the-year honors and becoming the best-selling game of 2001.
The violent nature of the game and critics' contention that youthful players act out what they see has fingered GTA III in the Lynch case.
'Grand Theft Auto Vice City' sizzles with violence (Rockstar Games)
In October, attorney and activist Jack Thompson filed a $246 million lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., GTA III designers Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart, in connection with a Tennessee case in which two teenage stepbrothers killed one person and injured another by shooting rifles at passing motorists, the Scene reported. The teens claimed GTA III as inspiration.
"I think the video game industry is about as evil as any entity in America is," Thompson told the paper. "I'm out to take their money from them – and it's blood money, in some of these instances – and give it to the people who have been harmed by them."
Thompson contacted JoLynn's father, Mickey Mishne, upon hearing about the girl's murder. After learning about the game and recalling Lynch's behavior, Mishne became convinced the boy was inspired by GTA III. Lynch's favorite GTA III murder weapon reportedly was the baseball bat.
Mishne likely will be a part of a civil suit targeting GTA III.
"We are on a crusade," he told the paper. "We'd like to see everybody who has one of the [games] turn them in, like they do with rifles and pistols. We want to put them out of business."
Dustin Lynch, sitting in jail awaiting his murder trial, recently responded to several written questions from the Scene.
When asked why he killed JoLynn, Lynch responded, "I killed JoLynn for my own personal satisfaction. I yearn to see blood, it's a need or an addiction and also a fetish. I'm just obsessed with it all."
Though Lynch could possibly benefit from claiming he was a victim of the video game, he is denying that's the case.
"Old man Mishne and whomever else believes that GTA III influenced me to brutaly [sic] kill JoLynn ... they are all idiots!" Lynch wrote to the Scene. "I killed JoLynn Mishne for my own personal satisfaction, not because of a video game," adding that he "did her a favor and satisfied all my needs while doing it!"
Lynch, now 17, claims to have begun thinking about murder at an early age: "Ever since I was 6 years old, I've wanted to kill someone," he wrote. The teen claims to have killed 35 people, though there is no evidence backing up his assertion.
The alleged killer is scheduled to face trial as an adult on Jan. 12 and faces up to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
"The only people I care about is Adolf Hitler and myself! Heil the fuehrer! Hitler is God!" he wrote to the paper.
The young man says he's not afraid of prison, hoping to get his high-school diploma and write a book while there.
"I might be small, but I know how to handle my business," he writes. "I'm a 'Lynch,' it runs through [our] blood. Just like jail!"
Lynch claims he'd like to be executed eventually.
"When my book is complete and I'm ready, I'm going to kill someone else so that I can get the death penalty. I took so many lives and I'm just curious to know what it's like to be dead. Is there an 'after life'? etc. I want to die by lethal injection. I think that is better than any other method (ex. – killing myself, or by some horrible death). …"
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports Lynch's mother, Jerrilyn Thomas, says in the past two months, her son has attempted suicide at the jail, refused to cooperate with his attorney, wrote incriminating letters to Mickey Mishne and stopped communicating with her.
Asked if he was disturbed, Lynch wrote to the Scene: "I AM NOT DISTURBED AT ALL! Like I said, I have certain needs, desires and a fetish. Cutting myself is a fetish. I feel so powerful when I do it, kind of like I'm on coke. Each slice I take is like hooting another line! I'm fascinated by the sight of blood, and when I'm locked up the way I am the only blood I can get is my own."
There can be no other explanation for their sociopathic acts.
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