I've read a bit about this story over the years -- perhaps it's a little more popular given that about half of my (very large) graduating class attended Michigan State University.

I was the "computer geek" growing up and somehow I managed to avoid getting into D&D. I ended up finding out, later, that it was mostly by design. My parents had been familiar with this story and were generally of the belief that D&D was "of the devil"[0].

When my parents first explained the story and why they didn't want me playing D&D[1], I did what most kids did and polled my friends to see if anyone played. Much to my surprise, a kid two doors down was obsessed. So five of us sat in a room while my friend, walked us through what I can only describe as "playing pretend with dice[2]".

I learned that day that "Tabloids" and "The News" are distinguishable from one another only in that the former is expects you to be skeptical, the latter expects your trust. At the end of the day, the product is very nearly identical. As a young man when Columbine occurred, which I followed very closely, I think my faith in the general news media was completely destroyed.

Here I am, sitting in a room with four of my friends, one behind a board with notes, random-seeming things happening requiring dice rolls. Dude. I was bored as hell. Common sense, at that point, told me that if someone became so immersed in this that they lost their mind to ... insanity ... SATAN ... what-have-you that the issue wasn't D&D, it was a far more complicated mental illness. How come a 13-year-old kid could see this but a flurry of adults -- my parents included -- couldn't? Had D&D not existed, this would have still happened, and I'm confident that "The Media" would look for an explanation outside of "human beings sometimes do shocking things" or "mental illness". Those don't have easy solutions.

And I think a lot of it is our fault as consumers. Not because we watch the news, but because we want to know that a tragedy like this "has a reason". We want the news to tell us that "Violent Video Games", "D&D", ... I don't know ... "GMO Foods" are the reason and if we just ban those things, we won't have to worry ourselves with that whole classification of problems. It's a knee-jerk reaction because we're uncomfortable accepting the fact that bad things happen for complicated reasons and people do bad things, and that often "good people" are capable of incredible evil.

Consequently, I've been a bit vague about exactly what happened because I don't know that I ever received the "true story". My parents recollection was as good as an urban legend and I got a chuckle out of the opening line: "you probably heard tales from a college your friend’s brother’s cousin attended on the fringes of wherever you lived". It reminded me of the year after High School, when somehow, nearly every girl I knew from High School who was a Freshman at MSU somehow narrowly avoided being abducted on the "Rape Trail"[3].

[0] I think the only other thing we were told was "of the devil" was a Ouija board.

[1] I was never forbidden from playing, but they weren't buying, I had no income and I hadn't found any friends who were into it.

[2] If it's not already clear, my knowledge on this subject is just about zero. I'm really not trying to bash D&D by over-simplifying -- this was my impression as a 13-year-old kid and since I've had no further experience, it's the one I carry as an adult. It's also not the point.

[3] My attempts to triangulate the location of this mysterious Rape Trail resulted in the discovery that there wasn't a general consensus across campus of what really was the "Rape Trail". I concluded that "Rape Trail" was a phrase used to describe every walking path that was not in a building.