Federal prosecutors say that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will face no criminal charges for patronizing a high-priced, multi-state prostitution ring.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia told CNN:

After a thorough investigation, this office has uncovered no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds.

 

In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the longstanding practice of this office, as well as Mr. Spitzer's acceptance of responsibility for his conduct, we have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter.

Theoretically, Spitzer could face local charges lodged by Washington D.C authorities (it's illegal to hire a prostitute), but that seems highly unlikely at this point.

As governor, Spitzer pushed hard for legislation designed to regulate video game sales. Ironically, he claimed to be concerned about the cartoon prostitutes in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, saying:

Media content has gotten more graphic, more violent and more sex-based… Currently, nothing under New York State law prohibits a fourteen-year old from walking into a video store and buying… a game like ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ which rewards a player for stealing cars and beating people up. Children can even simulate having sex with a prostitute…

In April GamePolitics readers voted Spitzer Gaming's Biggest Political Hypocrite, beating out the likes of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and British MP Keith Vaz.

GP: Pictured are Spitzer, a GTA prostitute and 22-year-old Ashley Dupre. It was the disgraced guv's rendezvous with the would-be singer that led to his downfall in March of this year. On the other hand, if Spitzer had stuck with GTA's virtual hookers he'd still be governor.

Thanks to: GP reader seikyo for the heads-up!

The Daily Mail reports that 19-year-old Ryan Chinnery (displaying bling at left) has been sentenced to an indefinite period of incarceration after pleading guilty to a series of sexual assaults in Kent. GamePolitics previously covered the start of Chinnery's trial in September.

As it does so often these days, Grand Theft Auto gets the blame:

[Chinnery] prowled streets in his car targeting innocent women he thought were prostitutes - imitating scenes from the controversial [Grand Theft Auto] game in which a man drives around and attacks call girls...  Officers found a copy of the 18-certificate Grand Theft Auto during a swoop on the home Chinnery shared with his girlfriend - and he initially insisted to detectives that he had been playing on his computer at the time of the attacks.

Prosecutor Eleanor Laws told a jury last month how Chinnery's obsession with Grand Theft Auto, which has sold some 35million copies, 'may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women'. Miss Laws added: 'Prostitutes in it can be exposed to violence. There may be some connection with the defendant admitting spending a lot of time playing that game.'

The judge, on the other hand, seemed to relate Chinnery's crimes to an obsession with porn, but did give GTA a mention. The Kentish Express reports:

Judge Philip Statman said: "What most troubles me is the mirror conduct between pornography and that which he later does. It is as if spurring on comes from the pornographic material.

"I know part of this case referred to something called Grand Theft Auto. While it appears the defendant does not accept it influenced his conduct on that particular evening, it could not have helped him, I would have thought, in all the circumstances of the case."

Love the incentives, hate the content restrictions.

As reported by the Austin American-Statesman, that pretty much sums up what ESA CEO Michael Gallagher told the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce during a recent visit to Texas. While praising a grant package for film makers and game developers passed in 2007, Gallagher rightly criticized:

...a content requirement about not disparaging Texas. Those types of speech restrictions in general are not viewed in favor by the courts. They tend to lead to a lot of problems down the road.

The ESA boss reminded the Chamber crowd that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) gave the keynote at this year's E3 (although he probably avoided mentioning how few E3 attendees showed up for the Guv).

The newspaper also mentions a concern that some Texas politicos have about providing grants to developers:

Legislators are warming to the idea of providing state funds to video game companies, but there is still some reluctance. Some fear that a political opponent could accuse them of voting to spend state funds on games like the violent "Grand Theft Auto."

The video game violence controversy has come to the Caribbean.

As reported by The Nation Newspaper, government officials in Barbados are under pressure to ban violent video games, or at least enforce their content ratings.

The flap began on Monday when the head of the National Organisation for Women called for a ban on violent games and toy weapons.

In lobbying for a ban, Yvonnes Walkes said:

We need an approach to reverse this culture of violence and force that the Deputy Commissionerof Police... spoke about. We have to start with the children, the schools and the parents...

We have to be aware and be vigilant to get measures in place. This will also be one of our main focuses during our 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women...

In response to Walkes' remarks, video game retailers requested that the government intervene with legal restrictions against selling games to underage players. Mahesh Mahtani, manager of a game shop, pointed to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:

We do not sell [GTA:SA] at all, because it is the worst we have seen, with very strong sexual content and
sexual crimes. In fact, any games that depict gang violence and gang warfare, we generally do not encourage.

However, another store manager, Brent Cook, felt that singling out video games for blame in the nation's violence epidemic was unfair: 

It comes down to practising good parenting... You have to monitor everything your child does.

GP: While the article is not clear on this point, it seems that some Barbados retailers are voluntarily enforcing content ratings. Perhaps other retailers may feel that having the force of law behind them would make it easier to turn down underage buyers.

In the U.S., vastly improved ratings enforcement at point-of-sale, especially among major retailers, has significantly reduced the rate of M-rated game sales to minors. But those improvements came in response to political pressure and were fostered by strong industry trade associations for game publishers and retailers.

Via our sister-site, GameCulture, comes this spoof of those old Intellivision commercials which inexplicably featured erudite writer George Plimpton.

Here's the original. It's almost as funny as the parody...

Pwn or Die serves up new Sarah Palin images in which the Republican Veep candidate is Photoshopped into various video game shots. 

You'll recognize GTA IV, Tomb Raider, and others

Personally I found the GTA IV lollipop girl image (hit the link) the most entertaining, but the big, huge Pwn or Die watermark across the center is a buzz kill.

We are seeing more and more Palin parody material of late. Fidget finds it no surprise that Palin is getting so much attention in gaming circles, citing this RNC-time post on The Atlantic

In addition, I predict a bonus unintended consequence for McCain among middle class/educated/post-college/pre-adult white males. A demographic label that follows many into their late 30s and currently trends for Obama. Basically the gamers/Gen-Xers/Seth Rogen/Will Farrell crowd..."Sarah Palin as Lara Croft" will leave these guys drooling like zombies.

The contracts of Rockstar Games' Sam and Dan Houser expire early next year so many are wondering where the developer of Grand Theft Auto might end up.  Will the Housers stay with Take-Two, go independent, or hook up with another publisher?
 
According to Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey, they’ll probably just stay where they are:

We find it unlikely that the Houser brothers would leave Take-Two Interactive for a competitor, as loyalty, compensation, culture and compelling IP should be sufficient in aggregate to leave employment alternatives unappealing.

Still, we’d be surprised if a few big name publishers didn’t make a bid for Rockstar when it becomes available.
 
AE: And what delicious irony it would be if Rockstar ended up with EA.

Via: Gamasutra

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen...
 

Given this week's revelations that GTA Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS will feature a drug dealing mini-game, it was only a matter of time before criticism began.

Today's edition of British tabloid The Sun covers the story under the headline Fury Over Drug Deal Vid Game and includes a comment by Darren Gold of support group Drugsline:

Anything using drug-dealing as entertainment is sending out the wrong message. Glamorisation doesn’t help our work trying to educate kids of the dangers of substance misuse.

Rockstar, of course, seems to revel in such controversy.

Who remembers Snow?

Today's news that GTA Chinatown Wars on the kid-friendly Nintendo DS will contain a drug dealing mini-game reminded us that as recently as June, 2006 GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive put the kibosh on Snow, a drug dealing simulator for the more adult-centric PC platform. The game had been on the show floor at E3 just a month before.

What's different now?

• In June, 2006 Hot Coffee was still a big issue for T2 and the game biz
• GTA Chinatown Wars = GTA + the Housers. With their contract expiring in February, T2 is likely to be quite accomodating to the creative urges of the reclusive brothers behind the best-selling GTA series.

Here's correspondent Colin McIness 2006 report on Snow from the old-school GP.

In a move that is sure to spark controversy, the upcoming Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for Nintendo's handheld DS will feature a drug-dealing mini-game.

Although many grownups use the DS, it is widely regarded as a kid-friendly system. Citing a print story in Edge magazine, CVG reports:

Here's some news that's surely going to send mainstream newspapers (and Nintendo's PR department) mental. It's emerged that for DS features a full-on drug-dealing mini-game.

Revealed in the latest Edge magazine, the drug-dealing feature lets you flog heroine, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid and downers. Selling the six type of drugs makes you a ton of in-game cash and help you gain experience of market conditions, says the mag.
 

Rockstar exec Dan Houser is also quoted:

We wanted to have a drug-dealing minigame in lots of the GTA games. We played with it a little in Vice City Stories, because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story. It works well with what GTA is, with driving around the map, and it gives you another thing to think about - another layer or piece of the puzzle to keep you motivated. It does intersect with the main story, and things you learn from it work with the story, but it mostly runs on its own.

GP: In the video at left (sorry for the poor sound quality) Nintendo exec Cammie Dunaway announces GTA Chinatown Wars at this year's E3.

The Daily Mail reports that a 13-year-old French boy is under arrest in Lyon, charged with committing arson against several cars.

A Lyon police spokesman told the newspaper:

He said he played the game for a few hours, then wanted to go out and what it felt like to burn out some cars. This kind of entertainment is clearly having a negative effect on some young people.

There's an obvious accuracy problem in the story, however. See if you can spot it:

The 13-year-old schoolboy used petrol to set light to three vehicles after playing on the violent GTA 4: Liberty City game on his home PC.
 

If you said, "Wait, the PC version of GTA IV doesn't even ship until November 21st in Europe," go to the head of the class.

GP: Thanks to reader NovaBlack for tipping us to this story in Shoutbox.

As GamePolitics reported earlier this week, Take-Two Interactive's deal with Grand Theft Auto creators Sam and Dan Houser expires in February.

The brothers' free agent status is likely to produce a bidding war for their services, and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick may have engaged in some advance recruiting, according to Silicon Valley Insider:

A second after telling Goldman Sachs’ Mark Wienkes at the company’s investor conference today that he couldn’t talk about the co-creators of the hit [GTA] franchise, Kotick had this to say:

 

We (Activision) really embrace the individual studio model. We know how to take studios and talented teams and appropriately incentivize them. We’ve definitely become the destination location for independently minded entrepreneurial talent.

 

Translation: Housers, come work for us
 

Reaction has been swift to yesterday's report that EA was giving up on its quest to acquire Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive.

As GP predicted yesterday, Reuters is now reporting Take-Two's stock price has plunged. Indeed, from Friday's close just under 22, as I write this the stock [TTWO] has dropped to 16.44. On the other hand, the market as a whole is experiencing a broad sell-off today as shockwaves from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the purchase of Merrill-Lynch ripple through Wall Street. At the same time, EA [ERTS] stock is also down from Friday's closing price of 44.99.

Reuters quotes UBS analyst Benjamin Schacter on the EA-T2 situation:

While (Electronic Arts) will not reveal details about its exact reasons for walking, the fact that it did not make any offer after further due diligence will certainly raise some eyebrows.

 

In our view, Ubisoft could be a logical buyer, but a deal would not be easy. Traditional media companies as well as Asian video game publishers-operators might also be interested, but we don't believe that these players are likely to even match EA's prior offer given that none would have synergies in the sports genre.

16-year-old secret shoppers were able to purchase knives and Grand Theft Auto in a retail sting operation conducted by Trading Standards officials in the U.K. city of Plymouth.

As reported by the Plymouth Evening Herald, five of nine game retailers sold GTA to the undercover buyers while only two of 25 sold them knives. Fair Trading Officer Lynda Braddock commented:

We’re disappointed that the games sellers concerned don’t seem to have taken their training on board or recognised the fact that these games are given a high age rating for a reason.

Councillor Michael Leaves, Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Environmental Regulation, added:

Parents will be worried about these test purchase results. The carrying of knives by some young people seems to be a plague at the moment. It’s vital for shops not to sell youngsters knives and I find it very disappointing that any in Plymouth have done so.

 

As for violent video games, I believe they must have a detrimental influence on any children who play them and I would not be at all surprised if there was not a connection with the knife crime issue. Everyone who sells these games must take extra care to ensure they only sell them to those who can legally buy them.

British tabloid The Sun has laid the blame for a string of sexual assaults at the feet of Grand Theft Auto.

Under the headline Sex Beast copied Grand Theft Auto, the newspaper spins the tale of 19-year-old Ryan Chinnery (displaying his bling at left). In true tablod style, The Sun's prose is lurid:

A TEEN sex beast attacked four women in an imitation of violent computer game Grand Theft Auto, a court heard yesterday.  Ryan Chinnery, 19, prowled streets in his car targeting females he thought were prostitutes after becoming obsessed with the video nasty...

 

And the court was told he may have been influenced by the virtual reality game, in which a character drives around on “missions” — including approaching prostitutes who can be beaten up. A copy of Grand Theft Auto was found at his home by police...

 

Prosecutor Eleanor Laws said Chinnery’s love of Grand Theft Auto “may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women”. She said: “Prostitutes in it can be subjected to violence. “There may be some connection with the defendant admitting spending a lot of time playing that game.”

Another in an irregular - but all too frequent - series:

This morning comes word that 20-year-old Army PFC Tan Quoc Ngo was killed in an August 27th ambush in Afghanistan.

As reported by a lengthy obituary on Oregon Live, Ngo's parents were refugees from Vietnam. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski was among those who attended the young man's funeral on Friday. From the news coverage:

He liked nothing better than playing pickup basketball or football, or playing cards with friends in his Beaverton neighborhood... He also liked video games, including Grand Theft Auto and Halo...

GP: Why do we do this? The gamer generation is much maligned these days. With so many gamers currently serving in U.S. military forces around the world, GamePolitics makes it a point to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks to: Reader Kojiro for the link.

Are Nico Bellic and Liberty City coming to the Wii?

Take-Two CEO Ben Feder (left) wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no during yesterday's conference call to discuss T2's third quarter financial results. As reported by MCVUK, here are Feder's comments:

With respect to GTA Chinatown I will tell you that we’ve spent an enormous amount of time and effort working with Nintendo and developing that partnership. We’re very proud of the partnership that we have to date.

 

We continue to build that relationship. We think we have significant value to add to that partnership and that’s not a one-way relationship in any way. GTA Chinatown Wars is not even the first step but certainly an important step in continuing to develop that relationship.

 

So without commenting on whether GTA specifically whether it is coming to the Wii or not, I will say that Nintendo and Take-Two work very well together. Nintendo and Rockstar are beginning to work well together and we intend to continue to grow that relationship.

GTA Chinatown, of course, is the DS title revealed by Nintendo at E3. No release date has been specified.

Any decision to move GTA to the Wii would likely be based on technology as opposed to residual queasiness over Nintendo's "family friendly" image. After all, the Wii has already been graced with Manhunt 2. The controversial Madworld is in the pipeline.

From a tech perspective, it would seem quite the challenged to get, say, GTA IV on the Wii, given the system's limited storage capacity. So perhaps if the GTA franchise does make it to the Wii, it will be a system-specific title.

Full transcript of T2 conference call graciously provided by Seeking Alpha.

Over at Fidgit, Tom Chick points out an unusual 4th birthday cake for someone named "Lil Derrick." 

A GTA cake for a four-year old? 

Someone's not paying attention to those ESRB ratings...

Tom found the pic at Cake Wrecks, where readers are hotly debating whether it is a real cake or simply Photoshopped.

A leading Thai newspaper takes the government of Thailand to task for basing a video game crackdown on the recent murder of a cabbie by an alleged Grand Theft Auto player.

An editorial in today's Bangkok Post is unsparing in its criticism of the official response to Polwat Chinno's claim that GTA prompting his stabbing of 54-year-old victim.

Far from showing concern, this [government] reaction [to the murder] emphasised the huge gap between the real technology revolution and what the country's leaders appear to know about it. 

 

First of all, it is most troubling that authorities and the media latched on so quickly and conveniently to the alibi of a confessed, vicious killer... He is an adult who told police he planned and carried out a reprehensible killing for a small amount of money. His claim that the video game Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime sounds more like a novel legal defence than a credible motive. Tens of millions of people around the world play that game - tens of thousands in Bangkok...

The Post also outs the Thai government's laughable list of Top 10 Violent Games, a story broken here on GamePolitics (see: Thailand's 10 Violent Games to Avoid List Stolen From Detroit):

The Public Health Ministry quickly assembled a list of Top 10 Violent Games - not by research or reason, but by a quick Googling in which bureaucrats accepted the first hit, an obscure list from a local US politician trying successfully to get his name in the newspapers and his face on the TV news in an election cycle. 

 

Such a ban is also self-defeating, since new games come on the market regularly. In any case, a police ban is only another business hitch to the video pirates and shop owners involved in underground distribution...

 

The problem is most parents and few politicians have a clue about such things. Many are technologically illiterate...

Develop has a terrific interview with Rockstar Games' co-founder Sam Houser who dishes about the direction of the company and offers his reaction to critics:

I think we probably read most of [the criticism] – if you turn on a computer this stuff reaches you, usually forwarded by an old friend laughing at you. 

 

No [I don't pay attention to critics] – I think [he and brother Dan] are both depressed at how boring we really are and how unexciting even the worse fabrications and exaggerations are when you read about them. None of it seems very rock and roll...

 

Most of the people who hate us are people it is truly an honor to be hated by – reactionary creeps with strange agendas – and the Daily Mail.  Most people who know about modern pop culture know about GTA and like or dislike it on its own merits.
 

Could executves of Take-Two and Rockstar Games be prosecuted for an alleged copycat killing in Thailand?

Following local police assertions that the murder of a Bangkok cab driver was prompted by the killer's play of Grand Theft Auto, a Thai government official has called for prosecution of game publishers for instances of copycat violence.

AsiaOne Digtal quotes Somchai Jaroen-amnuaysuk of the Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups Office:

When a player copycats a crime he or she sees in the game, the game maker should be prosecuted. Prosecutions will automatically force game makers to act more responsibly.

Over the past week there has been much written about accused Thai killer Polwat Chinno (at left, supposedly re-enacting his crime for investigators).

Police in Bangkok claim Chinno's alleged murder of a taxi driver was sparked by his playing of Grand Theft Auto.

On that score our attention was caught by this excerpt from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph: 

After the stabbing, [Chinno] tried to steal the taxi with the dead driver in the back seat, but did not know how to drive. Neighbours in Soi Jaran Sanitwong in central Bangkok called police after Polwat constantly pressed on the horn as he reversed into a dead end. When police arrived Polwat had locked himself in the car.

...all of which begs the question:

If Grand Theft Auto supposedly trained this 19-year-old man to kill so effectively, how could it be that it didn't train him to drive very effectively? After all, we'd estimate (conservatively) that GTA players spend at least 25% of their game time cruising around the series' open environments in a wide array of vehicles.

Perhaps Ryan Brant just wanted to be closer to his old pal Jack Thompson.

After all, the $6.1 million Palm Beach fixer-upper (left) purchased by the disgraced former Take-Two CEO is just 90 minutes from Thompson's Coral Gables compound.

In any case, the Palm Beach Daily News details the sale, including a mention of Brant's legal difficulties. GamePolitics readers may recall that Brant pleaded guilty last year to committing massive stock option fraud while running Take-Two. He received a five-year probationary sentence and had to cough up $7 million to the government to put things right.

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reports that an association of taxi drivers has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto.

We're working from an imprecise Google translation, but the basics of the story are that Josep Maria Goñi, secretary general of the Catalan Taxi Federation, has requested that the Spanish government pull GTA titles off the market.

Goñi makes it clear that the Taxi Federation's request is based on the Thailand murder case. The cabbie spokesman didn't stop at GTA, however, calling for a ban on all games with a high level of violence or which "celebrate" drug trafficking or prostitution.

GP: We've always found the GTA series to be fairly sympathetic to cabbies. After all, they get mega-tips if you warp to your destination. You can even play as a driver, racing fares around town to earn some in-game cash. And, as GameSpot points out:

There are no actual missions in GTAIV which require players to rob, stab, or kill a taxi driver...

Singapore may have banned Mass Effect last year (and later un-banned it), but gamers there do not want to see a Grand Theft Auto ban.

As reported by the Electric New Paper, gamers in Singapore are concerned that last week's cabdriver murder in Thailand may prompt a video game backlash:

'It's a game, it's just for fun,' said student Julius Wong, 20, who completed [GTA IV]... 'What makes the game popular is that you get to do things you don't normally get to do in real life.' Playing the game was 'stress relief'.

 

Student Poh Koon Kiat, 23, was also against a ban, saying it would be a knee-jerk reaction. 'I don't think games affect how I act in real life,' he said.

ENP reports that GTA IV was a huge seller in Singapore, with 20,000 copies sold during its first week at retail. Local distributor IAHGames said it was unaware of any move to ban the game.

In the wake of Saturday's highly publicized cabbie murder in Bangkok, there's more bad news for Grand Theft Auto.

Police in Fulton County, Georgia say that three teens arrested for a series of car arsons claim that they used GTA-inspired Molotov cocktails to set the vehicles ablaze.

WSBTV-2 reports:

Fulton County officials said they have arrested three teens and charged them with 57 felony counts in connection with a recent series of car bombings with Molotov cocktails in the city of Milton, north of Atlanta.

 

Officials said the teens -- ages 15 and 16 -- told authorities they learned "how to do it" from playing the video game "Grand Theft Auto."

Jesada Chandraprasert (left), who pens the Technology Thailand blog for Cnet Asia, wasted no time in disputing media reports that the murder of a Bangkok cab driver was prompted by his alleged killer's play of Grand Theft Auto:

the gist of the story is that a "good boy" up and kills a taxi driver for his money... Anyway, it turns out that this kid likes to play GTA and his parents... have concluded that it must be the game's influence...

 

I know, you must be thinking "same poopoo, different country". I couldn't agree more! People tend to find different things to blame for things that go wrong in their lives. This country is no exception... anyone who walks past a newsstand can tell you what you see on the front page of the Thai Rath [daily newspaper] is much more graphical than the worst of these games and movies.

 

Since [the Thai Ministry of Health is] bothering to make a list [of games to avoid], don't forget to include Temple Fair favorites like Whack a Mole that promotes animal cruelty, bumper cars for encouraging bad driving habits,  shooting the water gun into the clown's mouth which teaches you to use guns, an a plethora of other "violent" carnival games.
 

Media accounts of Saturday's murder of a Bangkok cab driver have caught the attention of a Filipino blogger who fears GTA-inspired violence.

Perhaps more interesting,however, is a brief glimpse into the Filipino game piracy scene offered by the Pinoy Biscuits blog:

Did you know that Grand Theft Auto pirated discs are selling like hot cakes in the Philippines? Go to Greenhills, San Juan you'll be able to buy a bootleg/pirated copy of the whole Grand Theft Auto series.

 

A time bomb is just waiting to explode in the Philippines. Lawmakers in the Philippines aren't that serious yet when it comes to video games, it's always too late as in the case of almost all other cases here in the Philippines.
 

Absent speculation that Grand Theft Auto somehow played a role, the murder of a Bangkok cab driver by a 19-year-old-man in some ways appears similar to the typical murder of a cab driver in the United States.

In the U.S., cabbie killings appear to have very little to do with violent video games, given that they peaked in 1990-1993, when crude first-person shooters like Doom were the bloodiest games available and the first Grand Theft Auto was years away.

Statistics on cab driver killings are maintained by Taxi-Library, which also profiles the typical cabbie murder.

• Two-thirds of such crimes are committed by men under 20. Accused Thai killer Polwat Chinno is 19.
• 82% of the assaults take place at night. News accounts describe the Bangkok killing as taking place "late on Saturday".
• nearly half of cabbie killers act alone, as Chinno is alleged to have done

Frustrated by sketchy and somewhat conflicting English language news accounts of Bangkok's GTA Cabbie murder, GP went looking for local Thai sources and found Asian Sweetheart. The site is mostly pictures of "gorgeous Thai ladies," but the cabbie murder apparently got the owner's attention away from posting glam shots:

The English language news stories left out much of the detail about the victim and the accused murderer. The Thai news had interviews of the families and other people involved.

The story is very sad for many reasons. On the victim's side, they are a poor family and the man was the only person making any income, and not much because driving a taxi does not pay very well. He became the chosen victim because he was older and smaller than the first taxi driver the killer approached.

GP: Based on the fact that the victim was selected by the killer in the belief that he would be an easy mark, this looks like just another premeditated robbery, not some random violent act. Taxi cab robberies have been going on as long as there have been taxi cabs (more on that later).

The killer's family is also poor but the teen had always been known as polite and very nice, even getting the dek dee (good child) award at school. The mother was a house maid and the father a security guard. The kid was alone a lot and the parents never really knew what he was doing all that time he was playing violent video games.

The 18 year old confessed to the killing, which means he won't face the death penalty as some western media incorrectly reported. He gave a detailed account of how he planned for the robbery and chose the victim, although he said the killing was not originally part of the plan but he did it when the victim fought back.