A Philadelphia teen is facing murder charges after he allegedly killed his mother for taking away his video game console.
Kendall Anderson, 16, is being charged as an adult for the murder of his mother, 37-year-old Rashida Anderson. Following a heated argument on Nov. 26 concerning a laptop stolen from school, Anderson’s mother confiscated his PlayStation video game console.
“I couldn’t stand the arguing,” Anderson said in a confession read by homicide Detective Thorsten Lucke of the Philadelphia Police Department during a preliminary hearing. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the teen deliberated for three hours before he decided to kill his mother.
In his confession, Anderson said he struck his mother with a claw hammer 20 times while she slept. The gruesome confession also revealed that he attempted to cremate her body. When his attempts failed, he proceeded to beat her head with a chair and dispose of her body in an alley behind the Anderson’s home. The body was discovered two days later, after family members’ suspicions led them to call the police.
Anderson is charged with murder, possession of an instrument of crime and abuse of a corpse.
“If I could, I would not do it again,” Anderson said in his confession, according to reports. “I really miss my mom. . . She was the only person who cared for me.”
Video game addiction has yet to be included as a behaviorial malady in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the effects of excessive video gaming are similar to those of mental addictions. This disorder has been described as an impulse control disorder which is similar to compulsive gambling.
Similar video-game related deaths have occurred in the past few years. In 2008, Tyrone Spellman of Philadelphia murdered his 17-month-old daughter after she broke his Xbox. In 2010, Alexandra Tobias of Jacksonville, Fla. pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after shaking her baby to death for disturbing her while she played popular Facebook game Farmville.