ELYRIA — A county judge found Daniel Petric guilty Monday of killing his mother and wounding his father in an October 2007 shooting, despite arguments from a defense attorney that the teenager’s addiction to video games made him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said he would have liked to find the 17-year-old, who was tried as an adult, not guilty by reason of insanity, but the law wouldn’t allow him to do so. It’s a decision that could send Daniel to prison for the rest of his life.

“It’s my firm belief as a human being, and not as a jurist, that Daniel does suffer from a serious defect of the mind,” Burge said.

Daniel listened without any apparent display of emotion to Burge’s explanation of his guilty verdict on aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, tampering with evidence and other charges. His family, including his father, the Rev. Mark Petric, cried and hugged each other after the hearing.

Family members, who have said they have forgiven Daniel, declined to comment as they left the courtroom, but they will have a chance to speak when Daniel is sentenced later this year.

Comparing the effects of video games to the pleasurable sensations caused in the brain by drugs such as heroin and crack, Burge said Daniel wasn’t in his right mind when he began planning his parents’ execution.

During the trial, Mark Petric testified that he and his wife, Sue Petric, had quarreled with Daniel about the violent video games he liked to play, including the sci-fi shooting game “Halo 3.” Daniel’s parents had confiscated the game and kept it in the same lockbox where Mark Petric kept his 9mm semiautomatic handgun — the same gun Daniel used to shoot his parents.

“(In the game) you can shoot these aliens, and they’re there again the next day. You have to shoot them again, and I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea, at the time he hatched this plot, that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever,” Burge said.

Instead, Burge said, the game created a “delusional environment” where the normal rules of reality didn’t apply.

“The addiction to the game was so strong that (he believed) his parents’ temporary death would turn on a light for them so they could see just how serious he was,” Burge said.

Daniel’s sister, Heidi Archer, and others during the trial last month also brought up Daniel’s obsession with video games in general and “Halo 3” in particular, with one friend describing how Daniel once played the game for up to 18 hours a day one weekend.

Prosecutors argued that Daniel knew exactly what he was doing when he planned and carried out the attack on his parents, going so far as to begin staging the scene to look as if his father had shot his mother before turning the gun on himself.

The arrival of Archer and her husband, Andy Archer, at the Petric’s Brighton Township home prevented that. After trying to keep the couple out, Daniel fled the house, according to prosecutors. He was arrested by Wellington police a short time later and initially tried to paint the shooting as a murder-suicide before later confessing.

Although two mental health experts — including one whom Daniel told he had thought about killing his parents for at least a week — examined Daniel before the trial and determined that he wasn’t insane, Burge said he plans to order a third examination before Daniel is sentenced.

Burge also noted that he believes further study of the effects of video games on the brain will eventually go far enough that it will be a valid defense to crimes and that those who suffer from it will receive mental health treatment.

Daniel’s family has pressed prosecutors to allow him to plead to lesser charges, which would have meant less time in prison, something county Prosecutor Dennis Will refused to do.

“I know they wanted to reduce the charges, and I explained to them that I couldn’t do that,” he said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

 

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