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The trial of three defendants accused of killing six people over an Xbox is set to begin next week. Troy Victorino, 29, Robert Cannon and Michael Salas, both 20, and Jerone Hunter, 19, are accused of beating six acquaintances to death with aluminum baseball bats during Victorino's attempt to reclaim an Xbox that he left behind after being kicked out of a house he had been squatting in. One of the victims apparently took the Xbox and some of Victorino's other belongings with her when she moved out. Cannon has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the attacks, and will be testifying against the other three in exchange for a life sentence. The other three defendants face the death penalty.

Attorneys for the defendants have attempted to get the trial moved from Orlando to south Florida, arguing that a fair trial is all-but-impossible given the amounts of pretrial publicity and the sensational nature of the crime.

Victorino and the other defendants had apparently threatened their victims in the days ahead of the slayings, as he was determined to get back the Xbox at any cost. He and the other three allegedly broke into a residence where some of the victims were sleeping, beating them all to death with baseball bats before departing with the console that one of the victims had taken with her after she moved.

At the time of the slayings Victorino was on probation for a near-deadly assault committed in 1996. Just a week before the slayings, Victorino was arrested for punching a man, which violated the terms of his parole. His probation officer's failure to have him jailed after the assault resulted in him and three of his supervisors being fired shortly after the murders occurred.

With the topic of videogame violence and its possible real-world ramifications a hot topic of conversation these days, the trial is already drawing a lot of media attention since an Xbox was involved. It could just as easily be a laptop, a TV set, or a stereo that occasioned the killings. This is not videogame-related violence. This is "someone has some of my stuff and I'm going to kill them in the process of getting it back" violence.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060411-6572.html