"D&D murder" case in Texas

[Tim Klein]

Below is a news article that appeared on p.33A of the 2 star edition of the
Houston Chronicle on Friday, Nov. 20. If you know anything about this
case that doesn't appear in this article, please email me, and I will
pass the information on to Paul Cardwell, the chairman of the Committee
for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games, which maintains a file of
such things. Or you can send U.S. mail to him yourself, if you prefer:

Paul Cardwell, Jr.
CAR-PGa
111 East 5th
Bonham, TX 75418
U.S.A.

(If you're interested in joining the CAR-PGa, send him a 52-cent SASE
for info. If you're in Canada, send an International Reply Coupon instead.)

2 youths get life in double slaying;
Suspects "wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone'

BROWNSVILLE -- Two Raymondville High School students who
"wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone" received life
sentences Thursday for murdering a young couple who were parked
last Thanksgiving Day on a country road.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra said there were
no apparent motives for the double slaying. But he said the two had
both a fascination with death and a long history of playing the
fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons.

"The only thing we could get out of them was, "`We wanted to
see what it felt like to kill someone,' " said Guerra.

Don Ruskin Campbell, 19, a member of a prominent Raymondville
family, received two concurrent life sentences and a 20-year prison
term for an attempted murder of a motorist earlier the same evening.

His co-defendant, Anthony Wayne Fadely, 19 -- whom classmates
nicknamed "Mr. Death" because of his preoccupation with killing
-- cooperated with prosecutors and was sentenced to life in prison.

Rey Cantu, a special prosecutor hired by Willacy County to
handle the case, told the judge that Fadely passed lie-detector
tests indicating he was not the triggerman.

Before handing down the sentences, 138th District Judge
Robert Garza called the murders "senseless acts." Garza made it a
condition of any future parole of the pair that they not return to
Willacy County.

Cantu said the three guilty pleas from Campbell would not
have been possible without Fadely's cooperation. Fadely pleaded
guilty to one count of murder on Sept. 28, and the other two
charges against him were dismissed Thursday.

The maximum sentences pleased the families of Vina Dawn
Chapa, 22, and her companion, Pedro Villacana, 20, whose
bullet-riddled bodies were found in Villacana's car by field
workers the day after Thanksgiving.

Pedro Villacana, a member of a large Raymondville family, was
shot 15 times. Chapa, a Houston legal secretary home for the
holidays, was shot nine times.

"I'm glad to hear they got the maximum sentence. I'm very
happy about it, even though I really think they deserved the death
penalty for what they did," said Pat Villacana, the sister of the
murdered man. "There was no motive behind this. There was no
reason for them to kill them. "

Security outside the courtroom was increased for the
sentencing. Several members of the victim's families had expressed
their anger with a plea-bargain agreement agreed to by prosecutor
Guerra soon after the killings.

Roland Chapa, the older brother of Vina Dawn Chapa, called
Guerra "an idiot" and accused him of trying to characterize the
double homicide as a racial incident.