NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – A 20-year-old man is accused of attempted second-degree murder after he allegedly flew from New Jersey to Fernandina Beach and attacked a man with a hammer inside his home, according to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.
“This is a weird one. Some things you can’t make up,” Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said.
According to the arrest report for Edward Kang, both he and the victim had never met but knew each other through an online game called “ArcheAge”.
Even though they never met in person, Kang told his family that he was going to “visit a friend” that he met years ago on an online game, according to Leeper.
It’s uncertain what the victim did to Kang, but he was mad, so Kang booked a flight from Newark to Jacksonville on Saturday night, bought a claw hammer and flashlight when he arrived, and went to the victim’s home, according to deputies.
The door of the home in the gated community was unlocked, so Kang went right in, dressed all in black with gloves and a mask, and attacked the victim by hitting him in the head, according to the report.
The victim ended up with severe but not life-threatening injuries.
The victim’s stepfather heard the screaming, and he and the victim disarmed Kang and held him for deputies.
Kang asked for a lawyer but not before telling a deputy “he’s a bad person online,” when referring to the victim, according to deputies.
It’s uncertain how Kang knew how to find the victim.
Leeper said the incident demonstrated the real-world consequences of video gaming.
Jacksonville cybersecurity expert Christopher Hamer said only law enforcement can locate someone by an IP address.
“Only law enforcement can take an IP address and with a subpoena or exigent circumstances can petition the provider to get the subscriber information for that IP address,” Hamer said.
Hamer gave context on how Kang could have gotten the victim’s address.
“Because of the nature of the game arcades online, and the fact that it’s shutting down, which means you have a winding down community. When the suspect left his house in New Jersey and told [his family] that he was going to see someone he’d known for a few years, I suspect they had some kind of online relationship where they exchanged information, and we’re aware of each other’s location. It may have been as simple as one of those, ‘Hey lets keep in touch now that the servers are going offline,’” Hamer said.
The servers for ArcheAge will shut down on June 27, meaning the game will no longer be playable starting on that date.
He said there is an application people can use outside of the game to exchange personal information.
“I would say there’s a very high probability that this is a case of, they had an out-of-game interaction where they exchanged information and something occurred in-game that caused a degree of animosity. This person just went over the edge and took it personal,” Hamer said.
Hamer recommends making a new account connected to a Facebook or Google account for games like these.
“When you’re playing an online game, you really need to be careful about how much information you share. When you’re posting in the forums when you’re on the internet and some of the Reddit areas. You need to be aware that not everybody on the internet is your friend,” Hamer said.