Informatic Murder: university student found dead in Nottingham

Last Friday ( the 19th of September), Joanne Witton came back to her home, a flat in Nottingham centre, and found her boyfriend dead, who had been living with her,laying on the floor with some wounds, apparently caused by a knife. His name was Matthew Pyke, 20, and he was an university student.

Mr.Pyke and Miss Witton usually ran on an online game website, called Advance Wars, and they often wrote on a game forum.

After the murder, a man who called himself David Heiss wrote on the Joanna Witton’s Facebook site his apologies “for having caused so much trouble lately”. That was the only time the killer contacted Miss Witton.

The flat had not signs of break-in, that’s why the police has supposed that Mr.Pyke could know his killer. The Police believes that the killer may havec hanged his clothes after the murder, because if he had left the flat in those conditions, someone would have suspected of him.

Recently,Nottinghamshire Police arrested in Frankfurt a man, 21, they suspect he could be “David Heiss” but they do not want to confirm anything.

Actually,the Police is working on some theories about the motive of the crime.

Someone thinks that Mr. Pyke could have defeated another gamer during some competition,and that this would have killed him to revenge his defeat. After the murder,someone wrote an anonymous poster, saying that other forum members may have known who was Mr. Pyke’s murderer.

But all these theories are very unsure, because Mr. Pyke had not many possible enemies out of the games, and he is now painted as a very good guy by all hisold friends.

His family is still shocked by the events of last week, but they left a tribute on Matthew’s Facebook site, saying “Darling Matthew. We love you so much and miss you. You were a truly good, sensitive person. Your smile will live on in ourhearts.”

Just a revenge for a defeat? Or is there something else under this murder?