Florida mass murder blamed on Xbox

Violent ex-con and several squatters allegedly slay entire household to recover gaming console.

One week after the UK was rocked by an allegedly Manhunt-inspired murder, the US has its own game-related slaying. On Friday, Sheriff's deputies discovered the bodies of four men and two women in the central Florida town of Deltona. All had been stabbed and beaten with baseball bats, some so brutally that they could not be identified by dental records. All had been killed in their sleep, along with the family's pet dog.

What could drive someone to commit such vicious homicides? According to the media, the slayings were committed because of a dispute over an Xbox console. Echoing last week's "Murder by PlayStation" reports in British tabloids, American news outlets like CNN ("Sheriff: 4 charged in Florida killings over Xbox") and the Associated Press ("Police: Xbox Theft Spurred Fla. Slayings") ran headlines trumpeting the Microsoft console as the primary reason for the crime.

However, the stories beneath the headlines paint a more complex picture. According to reports, the sequence of events that led to the mass murder began August 1, when Erin Belanger, 22, went to the vacant Deltona home used by her grandparents as a winter getaway. Once there, she discovered 27-year-old ex-convict Troy Victorino and several squatters living at the home, which they had been using as a "party house" since July.

Upset, Belanger kicked Victorino and the others out of the property and took the belongings they left behind--which included an Xbox--back to the nearby house she shared with friends. According to the AP, sheriff's deputies were called to the vacation home six times over the next week to evict the squatters. Belanger also reported that Victorino threatened that if she did not return the Xbox and some of his clothes, he was going to "beat her with a baseball bat when she was sleeping."

Tragically, that's exactly what happened late Friday night, when Victorino and three accomplices--Robert Cannon, 18; Jerone Hunter, 18; and Michael Salas, 18--reportedly entered Belanger's house armed with aluminum baseball bats. According to confessions made by the teenage suspects, they proceeded to beat and stab everyone in the house to death: Belanger; her boyfriend, Francisco Roman, 30; Jonathan Gleason, 18; Roberto Gonzalez, 28; Michelle Nathan, 19; and Anthony Vega, 34. After Victorino surveyed the bloody scene to confirm everyone was dead, he grabbed the Xbox, and the four departed.

The bodies were found several hours later, when one of the victims' coworkers went to the house to see why he had not shown up for work. On Saturday, police took Victorino and Hunter in for questioning. Hunter quickly confessed, leading to the arrests of the other two suspects. All four are being charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary.

While most media reports have focused on the Xbox connection to the mass murder, few have outlined Victorino's extensive criminal history. According to the AP, Victorino spent eight of the last 11 years in prison and was on probation when he allegedly committed the murders. Since he was first arrested for grand theft auto at 15, he has been convicted of a string of violent crimes, including arson, burglary, theft, and assault and battery.

23 Comments

  • CYSYKO

    Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:31 pm PT

    Extremely sad. Glad to see they are being put in prison for life and hopefully recieve the death penalty. All 6 of them deserve what they got coming to them. They were all horrible people then, and they still are now.

  • Ryze

    Posted Jul 27, 2006 3:30 pm PT

    I'm really starting to hate news companies. Fox News seems to be the worst for lies, spin and lack of balance - plus their motto blatantly lies to make it even worse.

    Bill O'Reilly too - he disgusts me with the methods he uses to force his redneck right-wing views on others. Check out some of his interviews...

  • Ryze

    Posted Jul 27, 2006 3:27 pm PT

    So, The Xbox was merely a material possession with $100+ value, that was important to its owner.

    The owner was a criminal, and already used criminal behaviour to solve his problems.

    There was no 'Grand Theft Auto' when he was committing grand theft auto at 15. Plus, stealing cars in the game involves no breaking of glass, locks, alarms or ignition systems. Just a quick and unrealistic tap of the triangle button (or Xbox equivalent).

    The criminal may have loved playing his Xbox so much that he spent less time creating problems in his life that he would solve using criminality.

    This issue is comparable to a robber stealing a guy's gold watch, and him calling the police and pressing full charges against the robber.

    The difference is that the guy is the criminal here, and the gold watch is the Xbox. This criminal doesn't solve the issue by calling the police - he deals with it in the distorted way that he lives his life, with the values that he has, probably due to a lack of guidance when he was young.

    Plus, he was probably having a bad day because he couldn't vent his criminal aggression on Halo 2 and GTA.

  • SugarWill

    Posted Jul 26, 2006 8:33 am PT

    No wonder he bought friends with him to the house, he had to have help lifting the xbox and carrying it to the car.
    I hope to god they dont get the death penalty, I want them all to rot in jail for the rest of there lives. Lethal injection is over in a couple minutes, but raping, beating, raping, beating, raping, sleeping, raping, beating, eating a peice of bread etc.....lather, rinse repeat, will feel like forver. I cant believe this happens, i cant belive people can do this sort of thing. I really feel for the familys and friends, noone should have to die like that. God punish their souls. F'n pigs.

  • Platyphyllum

    Posted Jul 25, 2006 8:02 pm PT

    What a bunch of losers, all they want is their Xbox and they don't care abut other's lives. They don't try putting themselves in others' position! How would you feel if you were beaten by an aluminum baseball bat while sleeping?

  • Australia-

    Posted Jul 25, 2006 3:49 pm PT

    I HOPE THEY ARE BEATEN AND RAPED IN PRISON AND I HOPE THEY SUFFER, YOU DONT KILL A DAM FAMILY DOG, ILL DRIVE ALL THE WAY TO FLORIDA AND KILL THEM ALL!! THE DOG IS INNOCENT, its all xboxs dam fault, i know its just a system, but....

  • lukavider

    Posted Jul 14, 2006 7:06 am PT

    Sure...here we go again, with all this "GTA spoils our kids and then they go rampaging acros the country shootin people in the face" crap...

    Ask yourself, what's the real issue here. Why aren't there any mass murders in Europe or Japan? Noooooo...it couldn't be that guns aren't widely available there, could it? Or maybe...

    As Jack Thompson

  • anamnawshad

    Posted Jul 14, 2006 6:14 am PT

    MS or Xbox isn't guilty in anyway. The Police is guilty. Why didn't they take action altough they were called six times!
    God this sick ****** should be killed the same way they killed their victims......

  • theloudestfire

    Posted Jul 13, 2006 11:38 pm PT

    thats really sad my heart goes out to the victoms families. i hope those dudes rot in jail.

  • 2bitSmOkEy

    Posted Jul 13, 2006 12:21 pm PT

    you have to be messed up in the head to be able to take someones life period. to brutally beat someone to death with a baseball bat is so unimaginably sadistic that i cant help but think someone should have noticed these guys were dangerous. this is truly a tragic event and i hope these guys get whats coming to them + some

  • Quadster

    Posted Jul 13, 2006 11:34 am PT

    this is exactly the negative type of thing which gets videogaming a bad name
    "there was an Xbox involved...i know...lets do a little word play and Blame Microsoft"
    F00kin' Idiots, if it were used as a murder weapon in a smashy smashy way....then i could understand....instead it was a fight over a console...once again....the man attempts to put the blame on an innocent entertainment device because in complete coincidence the scenario was about an Xbox, as a games console for harbouring violent video games and the induced behavior...and not an inanimate object

  • cocomacoco

    Posted Apr 18, 2006 5:30 am PT

    i can't believe people will kill for a console but for stupid prison pride and stupidity,what happened here was like this?:

    victorino:"hey b...,i came to pick up my xbox,hell yeah!!
    victim.-"what do you want here?,sorry,we dumped it long time ago,you know,space problems"
    and then,just for the accumulated anger of all this years inmate experience at the "tank",let the slay begins,and that's what happened,is true,face it,too much violence everyday and poverty,can lead the people to e'vry kind of atrocities to each other,and violence in video games do affect some individuals,but not EVERYBODY,so keep it mature ,and that's it,maybe increased the age to 21.That's a good solution.

  • kevinworner

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 8:52 pm PT

    [This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

  • peterzhao333

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 11:14 am PT

    After repeated reading of this article... I declare the XBOX not Gulty. Court is Closed. hehehe

  • skyvader

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 9:26 am PT

    Remove the tag line of "Xbox" and insert "belongings" or "stuff" and it doesn't have as much impact on the public. the media has been after violence stemmed from video games for quite some time. It is coincidental that there was an Xbox but it would make better sense if the xbox was infact used as the weapon instead of the hook to the story.

  • luv_mist

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 7:27 am PT

    Not to mention: BLAME M$ FOR IT ALL HUH?? What media lames.......

  • luv_mist

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 7:27 am PT

    I never believe in killing anyone for any reason but I could see why that mentally unstable man would have attacked that family. What was the reason to hold the system and his clothes honestly? I'm sure they didn't look like her grandparents clothes. That's mad tragic. Whole family wiped out. I feel even worse for that guy who did the killing. Sounded like he wasn't that remorseful. However, never know. Some people are just too unstable to be living sensible lives. And watch they make some dumb movie out of this like DreTire said.......

  • Icekxg

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 6:14 am PT

    Oemenia, people commenting this late cuz gamespot never had a Comments system in 2004. Anyway...those guys are seriously F'd up! They must've been smokin some of that Mary J or eatin some of those magical mushrooms from Mario to pull something like that off. Sick F---ers!

  • DreTire

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 4:45 am PT

    ...and in my own town; and "The Boondocks" was referencing it on one of its episode. As tragic as this sounds, at least the small town has a story to tell, and the reasoning may lead to a making of a TV-movie.

  • Oemenia

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 3:27 am PT

    Wow people commenting this late, i guess you click the link on the other page. Either way, yeah she wanted her house back, but why not give the guy's things back, are you retarted?

  • smo_doggy

    Posted Apr 11, 2006 12:55 am PT

    Dude whats wrong with people. Thats seriously messed up.

  • Maquis_UK

    Posted Apr 10, 2006 6:02 pm PT

    losers. people should only ever kill if there is a Game N Watch at stake.

  • Homsar13

    Posted Apr 4, 2006 6:38 pm PT

    [This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

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