WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

HOW does someone become so obsessed with a fictional character that they are driven to kill?

It’s a question many are asking as two 13-year-olds are accused of trying to sacrifice a friend to internet meme Slender Man face trial in an adult court.

While their alleged fixation appears to have played out online, there is a long history of disturbed individuals becoming so fascinated by a horror story that they are willing to commit murder.

SALT IN THE WOUND

Gary George loved witchcraft and horror films, particularly 2009 Australian “torture porn” The Loved Ones, in which a girl kidnaps and brutalises a boy who rejected her invite to a prom.

In 2012, the 41-year-old carried out an attack with “ chilling similarity ” to one from the graphic slasher film, the Chester Crown Court in the northwest of England was told.

George tortured and mutilated his friend Andrew Nall, 53, beating him and inflicting 49 separate knife wounds, including one carved into his stomach, into which he poured salt. He also poured cleaning fluid into Mr Nall’s eyes while he was still alive.

The judge and jury were forced to watch the movie, described by Australian reviewer Leigh Paatsch as “one sick flick” in which the victim suffers “a series of atrocities that should repel most viewers straight out of the cinema”.

George left Mr Nall in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.

Steve Miles compared himself to fictional serial killer Dexter, pictured. Source: Supplied

TAKES LIFE. SERIOUSLY

A 16-year-old from Surrey stabbed his girlfriend to death and cut up her body in an imitation of the fictional forensic expert serial killer from Dexter.

He had previously told an ex-girlfriend he was going to kill someone, and had texted Elizabeth: “You’ll see a lot of similarities in the personality of Dexter and myself.”

His lawyer told Guildford Crown Court: “This was a truly bloodcurdling, gruesome killing — horrendous beyond belief — ripped from the pages of a hit TV script.

“The evidence points to the defendant trying to emulate the actions of the character Dexter, whom he idolised.

“This case is a sad testament to the perils of how young people can become entrenched in modern TV blockbusters involving violence, which shockingly led to a copycat killing in real life.”

The politics student claimed to have an alter ego called Ed who had ordered him to kill someone. When his sister arrived home after the murder he told her: “Ed made me do something bad.”

He pleaded guilty and was jailed for life in October 2014.

Singer Aaliyah as Queen Akasha in the film Queen of the Damned.

‘I’LL BE IMMORTAL’

A 22-year-old who had watched Queen of the Damned more than 100 times said he killed his friend because he was told he would be rewarded with immortality and become a vampire “in the next life”.

Allan Menzies said he was visited at his home in Scotland in the night by vampire Akasha, played in the 2002 movie by singer Aaliyah, and ordered to murder Thomas McKendrick.

He told Edinburgh Crown Court he had killed Mr McKendrick using a bowie knife , a kitchen knife and a hammer, the BBC reported.

His offer to plead guilty to culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility was rejected after consultant forensic psychiatrists said it was “extremely unlikely” he was a paranoid schizophrenic, but appeared to suffer from an “anti-social personality disorder”.

Menzies said the character continued to visit him at psychiatric hospital Carstairs, adding that he was “disappointed” there were no other vampires there.

Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers. Source: News Limited

NATURAL BORN KILLERS

The 1994 movie has been named as inspiration for an unprecedented number of murders.

The two students responsible for the 1999 Columbine high school massacre were fans, and used the film’s acronym, NBK, as a code in their home videos and journals.

Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, murdered 12 students and one teacher, injuring 24 others, before taking their own lives. Harris had referred to the day of the killing as “the holy April morning of NBK”, and in an undated journal entry, Klebold wrote, “I’m stuck in humanity. Maybe going NBK w. Eric is the way to break free”.

High school shooter Michael Carneal, who killed three classmates in Kentucky in 1997, also cited NBK as inspiration, along with Leonardo Di Caprio movie The Basketball Diaries and video games Doom and Mortal Kombat.

Teenagers Sarah Edmonson and Benjamin Darras watched the Oliver Stone movie repeatedly in 1995 before going on an LSD-fuelled crime spree, killing William Savage and leaving convenience store clerk Patsy Byers a quadriplegic. John Grisham, a friend of Savage, accused Stone of being irresponsible in making the film. In 1994, a 14-year-old boy from Texas decapitated a 13-year-old classmate because he “wanted to be famous. Like the Natural Born Killers.” In 2008, 18-year-old Eric Tavulares strangled his girlfriend, Lauren Aljubouri, to death. Tavulares and Aljubouri in Wisconsin after watching the movies between 10 and 20 times.

The list goes on.

A student responsible for a university shooting had a tattoo of Billy the puppet from the horror franchise Saw. Source: Supplied

WHAT BILLY SAW

Steven Kazmierczak, who went on a gun rampage at Northern Illinois University on Valentine’s Day 2008, had a tattoo of the trademark doll from the horror franchise Saw.

Billy the Puppet, used by The Jigsaw Killer character to deliver messages to his victims, was one of several disturbing images etched into the arm of the 27-year-old, who took his own life after shooting dead five students and injuring 21.

The grisly series is also thought to have inspired Matthew Tinling, 25, who recreated a hideous scene from the notorious Saw IV by trying to sever his 45-year-old neighbour’s spinal cord.

Tinling stabbed ex-soldier Richard Hamilton in the head, neck and legs in a “savage and prolonged” murder.

Sentencing him to at least 30 years, Judge Timothy Pontius said: “You inflicted 17 wounds during the attack, the most serious of which was delivered specifically with the intention of severing the spinal cord, thus to cause paralysis and death, exactly as you had seen on a DVD.

“Whether or not that was Saw VI, found by the police in your room, or another in the series doesn’t matter. Plainly it was something you had seen and tried to imitate.”

The repetition of a meme could cement an idea. Picture: Imgur Source: Supplied

FACT AND FICTION

Movies and computer games are regularly blamed for deviant behaviour, with murderers and violent criminals often found to be obsessed with specific horror stories. But how does a young person become so entranced with an imaginary character that they want to kill to be close to them?

Sydney-based forensic psychologist Christopher Lennings says it’s not necessarily the idea that’s responsible, it’s the repetition. “We found that if you show people a violent video game or movie, you got a response — they’ll use more caustic words, swear more, be more aggressive,” he told news.com.au. “If you show movies featuring altruism, people respond more kindly.

“The effects are time-limited. There is almost no effect after ten days. But if you watch or play them time and time again, you’re getting reinforcement for the way you think and feel, which might have a more prolonged effect. People can become habituated to it and incorporate behaviour they’ve seen into their own repertoire.”

He said individuals who develop these connections were usually “fragile” or had “some kind of loose link somewhere” already, although not necessarily a mental illness.

“Fiction is designed to amplify an aspect of human nature, good or evil,” he added. “Characters have the perfect image. They stay the same, they don’t mutate or change.

“A child growing up has heroes they model themselves on. Adolescents might internalise characteristics of people they think are successful.

“Repetition of seeing the character they identify with creates that character in the mind. They start to act out and pretend to be that person, which can have unpleasant consequences.”

As we’ve seen here, those consequences can be deadly.

