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Crime

Devin Moore turned 18 on May 15th, 2003, and graduated from high school a few weeks later.

He seemed like he had a bright future. He had no criminal record and was a few weeks away from leaving his small town of Fayette, Alabama, to start a career in the Air Force.

His life spiraled out of control on June 3rd, 2003. It was 3 AM, and Officer James Crump and Officer Arnold Strickland approached Moore as he was sleeping in a vehicle in a restaurant parking lot.

After learning the vehicle was stolen, they arrested Mooer and took him to the Fayette Police Department.

While booking Moore, they learned that a business near where the car was stolen had been burglarized, and the burglar had left a shoeprint behind.

The officers suspected Moore was behind that crime. They removed his handcuffs to obtain his fingerprints and one of his shoes to make a print of it.

Rather than take the punishment for car theft and burglary, Moore decided to kill.

He grabbed Officer Strickland’s pistol and shot him in the head. He walked across the hall and shot Officer Crump in the head.

As he was leaving the station, he ran into police dispatcher Leslie Mealer and shot him, too. All three men died at the scene.

He went to the Fayette Fire Department, which was in the same building as the Police Department, and told a couple of firemen that “something bad had happened up front.”

From there, he stole a police cruiser. He was arrested in Mississippi four hours later with Officer Stricklands’ gun in the cruiser.

Reports indicate that after he was captured, he stated, “Life is a video game. You’ve got to die sometime.”

He also stated he committed the crime because he didn’t want to go to jail.

Video games get blamed

People would later try to blame the game Grand Theft Auto Vice City for his actions. The families of Moore’s victims sued the makers of the game and several retailers that sold the game for six hundred million dollars. They ended up losing the case.

Legal Proceedings

When Moore went to trial, his defense could not blame the game for his actions. They did try to say he was in a dissociative state and wasn’t responsible for his actions.

A jury of his peers sided with the prosecution and convicted him of six counts of capital murder in August 2005 after deliberating for one hour. A judge sentenced him to death by lethal injection on October 9th, 2005.