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Online Divorce Leads to Avatar Murder, Real Jail Time

by Dan Reilly on October 24, 2008 at 03:17 PM


We've talked about it a million times, yet people still haven't learned that what you do online has real world consequences. Today's winner is a 43-year-old woman from Japan who's sitting in jail after murdering her online husband's avatar after he suddenly divorced her. The real crime she committed is hacking, as she illegally logged into his account and killed off his character.

The woman and her 33-year-old virtual beau played MapleStory, a MMORPG in which characters fight monsters and can get married, with special wedding services.Sounds like an interesting combination in a game, but we won't judge. Back in May, the husband decided on the divorce and the wife got her revenge, naturally leading the man to contact the police.

After admitting the allegations to the police, she said, "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry." While apparently she wasn't plotting any head-in-the-freezer sort of revenge, she could face up to five years in jail and $5000 in fines if she's ever charged and convicted. Maybe MapleStory should offer a prenup scroll or something. [From: Yahoo!]

Tags: crime, divorce, japan, killer gadgets, KillerGadgets, MapleStory, mmorpg, web

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