Vietnamese teen strangles 8-year-old to play video games
HANOI - A teenager described as a "video game addict" strangled an 8-year-old
girl to steal money for the arcade, police in Vietnam said Wednesday.
Le Sang, 15, was arrested at a video arcade in the central city of
Dalat two hours after his neighbour's daughter was found dead in her
burning house. Police officer Nguyen Nhu Hung said that Sang
apparently killed the girl, and also tried to strangle her 6-year-old
sister, so he could steal about 200 dollars belonging to their
parents.
According to police, Sang stopped by his neighbours' home on Saturday
to use the telephone and overheard the two girls talking about how
their parents hid their money under the bed.
He told the younger daughter to go to her uncle's house, and then
strangled 8-year-old Ta Thi Tien Giang. He later covered her body with
mosquito nets and set them on fire, police said.
On his way out with the money, he ran into the returning younger
daughter and allegedly tried to strangle her as well, but ran away
after neighbours came running to put out the fire in the house.
Two hours later, he was tracked down at a local video parlour "playing
games as though nothing had happened", Hung said.
"Sang has long been known to be addicted to video games. He spent all
his pocket money on games and even money for his school books so that
he dropped out of school when he was 12," Hung said.
The boy had already been known to steal from his family and neighbours
and had been to state re-education programmes, he said. As a juvenile,
he will not be eligible for the death penalty but could get up to life
Deutsche Presse Agentur - August 21, 2002.
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