XBox 360 News
Colorado teens charged in Mortal Kombat re-enactment death
By Stevie Smith
Dec 20, 2007, 18:56 GMT

Seasonal videogame fever is gripping busy consumers searching stores for their favoured Christmas purchase, BioShock is picking up ‘Game of the Year’ awards, Jessica Chobot is still hot despite the cold… and all is well with the world. At least, it was before two teenagers in Colorado decided to beat a 7-year-old girl to death by allegedly imitating attack moves they’d witnessed in Mortal Kombat.

The sickening videogame re-enactment took place when Lamar Roberts (17) and Heather Trujillo (16) were babysitting Trujillo’s younger half-sister Zoe Garcia on December 06. According to an Associated Press report, court documents filed this week pertaining to the incident have revealed that the two teens have each now been charged (as adults) with a count of felony child abuse leading to death.

Furthermore, a police affidavit states that Zoe was repeatedly hit, kicked, and body slammed by Roberts and Trujillo before she eventually lost consciousness and stopped breathing. At this point the two attackers attempted to resuscitate Zoe by applying CPR and running water over her body. When those approaches failed, the two teenagers then called Zoe’s mother – who was at work – and also for paramedic assistance.

Zoe, who died after being rushed to a nearby hospital, had sustained swelling of the brain, a broken wrist, nearly two-dozen bruises, and bleeding in her neck and beneath her spine, the police affidavits explained. Prosecutors in the case are claiming that the horrendous incident came about as the result of the two teenagers wanting to imitate "wrestling moves" experienced in the violent fight game Mortal Kombat.

While Roberts has said he was playing videogames as Zoe and her sister were wrestling, a witness has told the police that Roberts admitted to kicking the little girl and that Zoe had told them to stop wrestling. The police affidavit outlines that when the witness asked Roberts why the wrestling did not stop at that point, he replied by saying "I don’t know, I was drunk."

"I just want my older daughter to come clean and tell the truth about what happened... She's protecting her boyfriend," said Zoe's mother, Dana Trujillo in a CBS4Denver report. "What I've been told is that it was all in play," she added, "But you don't play like that, resulting in somebody's death."

If convicted of the charges, Roberts and Trujillo could be facing close to 50 years behind bars for their actions.

Incidentally, the sound you can hear off in the distance is Jack Thompson sharpening his activist knives.