A truly bizarre and unfortunate report has surfaced just before last weekend where a Diablo II loot argument ended in a fatal shooting between two best friends.
The Diablo II loot argument went down on Friday, December 17th of 2021 between 36-year old Joshua G. Spellman of Amboy, Washington – and his best friend 34-year old Andrew Dickson. When playing Diablo II together, a random player entered their game and “stole” a rare loot drop that neither Spellman nor Dickson had a chance to pick up yet.
Speaking with detectives (via Columbian), Spellman said that he and Dickson and a third man were all playing Diablo II together, online, when the random player joined and stole the loot. The friends were communicating together via their headsets, but all live nearby in separate buildings on the same property.
For those unfamiliar, the Diablo franchise is an action RPG where players “host” a game that is comprised of its several in-game overworlds and dungeons, where other players can join randomly in public games or privately when given a password. Back in the day, I’d play online games and if we forgot to set a password – you better believe dudes would join and try to not only kill you but take any loot they can find (while telling you to kill yourself too).
Dickson got very upset when the random player joined and stole their loot, and went onto an angry rant on how their game should have been password protected (but wasn’t), and the affidavit alleges that Dickson began “yelling, name-calling and cursing” at Spellman. Spellman said Dickson’s rant went on for three to five minutes and he told Dickson that he needed to relax, or he was going to get shot.
Spellman then took his gun from next to his computer and went to the main house on the property, and the affidavit questioned “why his pistol was next (to) the computer” to which Spellman replied “Why not? This is America.”
When walking between the two buildings, Spellman reportedly fired his gun into the air before entering the main building. He apparently talked with his father when inside and prior to Dickson also entering the building. Dickson then went on to vehemently oppose Spellman’s earlier threat to shoot him. The affidavit then confirms Dickson “closed the distance” between the two and Spellman shot him in the torso.
Following the confrontation and the shooting, Dickson was rushed to the hospital and was operated on, but died from the shooting. Senior deputy prosecutor Luka Vitasovic has requested Spellman be held on a $2 million bail, saying a “seemingly minor incident resulted in someone being shot and killed,” after which Judge Snider set Spellman’s bail at $750,000 and Spellman is set to be arraigned on December 29th.
Diablo II Resurrected is now available for Windows PC, (via Battle.net), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. In case you missed it, you can find our thorough review on the game here.
This is Niche Culture. In this column, we regularly cover anime, geek culture, and things related to video games. Please leave feedback and let us know if there’s something you want us to cover!
