Does Jack Thompson have a cousin in Thailand? If so, he’ll probably be gloating and shouting “I told you so” from the roofs of Bangkok as the country’s largest publisher has ordered game stores to stop stocking Grand Theft Auto IV on their shelves following a teenager’s murder of a taxi driver.

Hit the jump for more.

According to the BBC, the 18 year old student is accused of stabbing a taxi driver to death in a scene he originally acted out in Liberty City. Initially trying to steal the taxicab, the teenager attacked the taxi driver when he tried to fight back, stashing his body in the backseat of the car. In trying to reverse the car out of an alleyway in Bangkok he was apprehended and arrested.

According to Bangkok police, the teenager confessed and said he was curious about “if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game”. He’d wanted money so he could play the game for himself properly but his parents, as low-paid civil servants, didn’t have enough money to give him: ergo, for some reason or another, he feels it appropriate to play the game for real instead.

Now, before any of Jack Thompson’s fan club gets up in arms and starts burning effigies of me (ahaha, I’m only kidding) we can assume right away that this here student is one unbalanced individual with a couple of screws loose inside that noggin on his. If I didn’t have enough money to pick up a game immediately, I’d wait until I had accumulated the dosh and then I’d go out and buy that game I had coveted for so long.

I wouldn’t decide “oh hey, maybe it’ll be just as fun in real life” and proceed to steal the next car I see. First off, it wouldn’t go very well, as even if I managed to smash in the window of a car, open it from the inside and get in, I’d sit there befuddled afterward, wondering where the trigger buttons are that I need to hammer to hot wire the car. And by the time I would have realized there aren’t any hot wiring buttons I’d be sharing a cell with a huge, sweaty man called Tiny for the next six months.

Second of all..it just beggars belief. [Editorial note: "beggars"?  I just don't get Scottish slang.  --Rothbart] You wonder what was going on in the kid’s brain if the only substitute for GTA IV in his “things to do” list is “jack a car”. Doesn’t he have much else to do? Then again, with screws loose, who knows?

You wonder what drives people to do these sorts of things. Me? I think I might have a pretty good theory. Hit up page two for more on this.

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