Teenage gamers in Singapore leap to their deaths

Man, a super-sad story, right here.

Two Singaporean teenagers have leapt from a ninth floor window to their deaths, after reportedly being influenced by a videogame based on popular manga series Slayers. Six of their friends also agreed to commit suicide as a group, but backed out at the last minute.

16-year-old Ku Witaya (above, right) jumped from the window with his friend Sia Chan Hong (also 16), and now authorities have released images of the former’s diary (above, left). If I’m being honest, they’re fairly heartbreaking. The entry pictured here was written on the day of Witaya’s death, and opens with:

“Last day on Earth :)”

Witaya claimed to be a Taoist medium, and managed to convince his younger brother and six other boys that the group should sacrifice themselves, so that they could return as ‘slayers’ to kill demons that threatened the world.

Although I’m totally unfamiliar with the Slayers series of games (Wikipedia says they appeared on various consoles in the mid- to late-Nineties), investigators think they may have played a major role in influencing the boys, who were know to be big fans of the titles. Sad, sad, sad.

[Straits Times, via GamePolitics]