21 Fictional Characters Blamed For Real Life Crimes

4. The Joker

On July 20th 2012 James Holmes attended a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises armed with multiple weapons, including tear-gas cannisters, a shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle, and proceeded to murder 12 people whilst injuring another 58. Immediately prior to opening fire Holmes was reported to have yelled "I am the Joker", wiping away any notion of the choice of venue for the massacre being a coincidence. Holmes' despicable actions weren't the only crimes perpetrated in the name of the Joker, also in 2012 a school girl in Indiana decided to apply white make-up and slash her cheeks into a smile before attacking her teacher with the same razor she'd just cut herself with.

3. Mickey And Malory Knox

Natural Born Killers holds the dubious accolade of being the film that has most influenced real life murder cases, with over a dozen murder and attempted murder cases directly linked to the film. Unlike The Matrix it was directly cited in relation to Columbine. The killers were confirmed as being fans of the film and both referred to their impending massacre as "going NBK" in their journals. The most notable case outside of Columbine occurred not long after the film's release in 1995. Teenagers Sarah Edmondson and Benjamin James Darras went on a spree, which resulted in the murder of Cotton Mill manager William Savage and another victim Patsy Byers surviving but being left quadriplegic. Savage happened to be a friend of author John Grisham, who publicly backed Byers' lawsuit against director Oliver Stone and Time Warner. The case eventually ruled that Stone and company were protected by the First Amendment, Byers appealed but lost again after it was found there was no evidence to support that the makers of the film wished to incite violence.