Hardcore Gamer Stabbed to Death

A CRAZED husband stabbed his wife to death as she played a computer game, a court has heard. Vladimir Gruener knifed his wife Nadja 17 times in the face, breast, legs and three times in the heart, a court was told.

Gruener, 48, said he killed his wife because he had lost her to "endless hours of computer gaming". He denies murder but is claiming manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

At his trial in Bonn, Germany, he claimed: "Everything went well between us until January, when she began sitting in front of the computer, sometimes up to 16 hours per day.

"I don't know what she was playing. There was shooting and then people were being captured. At night I would set the alarm for 2am and then go to the computer in the children's room. She was there. "I told her 'You can't do this'. She replied: 'I don't love you anymore. Something is missing'. That finished me."

He said: "In my soul I had the feeling that I had been ripped apart. We had a good life, actually, with two children." Their son, aged 12, and three-year-old daughter were in the apartment in Bonn at the time of the murder.

He told the court: "I drank vodka, I'm not sure exactly - she said something - I'm not sure what, I had a knife in my hand, then she fell down. I can't explain the state I was in exactly."

The case continues...

[mobiletone]