A 15-year-old boy who killed a schoolmate at a secondary school in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, last year had come to view his victim and other people around him as “NPCs”, the Shah Alam High Court was told.
In gaming, NPC refers to a “non-player character” controlled by the game rather than a human player. The term is also sometimes used online to describe people as lacking individuality or agency.
In her full grounds of judgment, Judge Adlin Abdul Majid said the finding was contained in a psychiatric report prepared by Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta director and senior consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Ian Lloyd Anthony.
According to the report, the teenager had kept a “Death Note” journal on his mobile phone in which he documented disturbing and psychotic thoughts, repeatedly referring to the deceased.
The journal, written in Mandarin, contained accounts of his symptoms during the six months leading up to the murder. It reportedly included beliefs that his classmates were conspiring against him and deserved to die, thoughts about causing mass casualties and a belief that others would lie to police to make him appear responsible.
The report also described how he had dehumanised people around him by referring to his schoolmates as “NPCs”, viewing them as valueless objects within a game.
The teenager also developed a grandiose belief that he had become Kira, the god-like character from the Japanese manga and anime series Death Note, who believes he has the power to judge and eliminate others.
The judgment further said the journal recorded the teenager’s identification with mass killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, whom he regarded as role models and, in his own words, “gods”.
Adlin said the entries also showed how his fixation on the victim developed from professed love into an intention to take her with him in death. They also reflected persistent suicidal thoughts, profound loneliness and a belief that his self-worth was closely tied to his physical appearance.
The psychiatric report noted a strong family history of mental illness, including an institutionalised aunt, a paternal grand-uncle with a mental disorder, two affected sons and another family member who had been treated for depression.
Dr Ian said the boy’s condition worsened over several years, with his family and teachers noticing behavioural changes from around 2020, when he was nine and the Covid-19 movement restrictions were in place.
He became increasingly withdrawn, isolated himself in his room and stopped communicating with his family. He also developed a persistent belief that he was physically unattractive and that other students were laughing at and talking about him.
The boy began wearing a face mask constantly, even after public health requirements had ended, and reportedly refused to remove it to eat or drink at school.
Outside the home, he became highly anxious and believed people were watching him, which the psychiatric report identified as paranoid delusions.
By 2023, the report said, his psychotic symptoms had developed further. He became convinced that CCTV cameras had secretly been installed at home and believed he was being watched by “the eye” of a technician who had repaired the system.
He later believed that his parents had secretly installed cameras in his bedroom and bathroom. By early 2025, the belief had extended to his school, where he thought the security guard and certain teachers were monitoring him through CCTV, including while he was in the school washroom.
Dr Ian also said the teenager developed an interest in school shooters and serial killers. From around August 2024, he became infatuated with the victim.
Seven months before the murder, he reportedly began experiencing auditory hallucinations in which a voice he attributed to Dylan Klebold spoke to him in Mandarin and instructed him to kill the girl.
Around the same period, he began identifying with Light Yagami, or Kira, the central character from Death Note.
“Taken as a whole, I accept that this chronology reflects a serious and longstanding psychotic illness that developed and worsened progressively over several years,” Adlin said.
She found that by the time of the incident, the teenager was experiencing active psychosis, including delusions directed at the victim and a commanding hallucinated voice instructing him to kill her.
Adlin said Dr Ian’s evidence rejected the suggestion that the teenager had fabricated his symptoms. The journal entries, she said, showed that the psychotic beliefs described in the psychiatric report were present in his mind before the incident rather than being created for the trial.
Three weeks after he was prescribed antipsychotic medication, Dr Ian testified that the hallucinations had stopped and the delusions had begun to dissolve. The teenager also started interacting warmly with his family, something they had not seen from him for years.
The judgment said the severity of his condition was further reflected in the fact that he had experienced psychiatric symptoms for about five years without treatment before the offence, including severe hallucinations and delusions.
Dr Ian diagnosed him with very early-onset schizophrenia, with psychopathic and sadistic traits.
During cross-examination, Adlin said Dr Ian had distinguished between hallucinations, which can be intermittent, and delusions, which are fixed and persistent.
“The delusional system was not something that came upon the child occasionally. It was present throughout, including during the incident,” she said.
The judge also noted evidence about the teenager’s prolonged duration of untreated psychosis (DUP), which refers to the period between the onset of symptoms and the start of treatment.
The Malaysian mean DUP was 28.7 months, compared with about 60 months in the teenager’s case, according to the evidence.
Dr Ian explained that untreated psychosis can become increasingly elaborate over time, with beliefs becoming more internally logical to the person experiencing them and increasingly resistant to correction.
Adlin said that by the time of the incident, the teenager’s ability to distinguish his perceived reality from the external world had become severely impaired.
The High Court subsequently acquitted and discharged the teenager of the murder charge on grounds of unsoundness of mind and ordered him to be placed at Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta for psychiatric treatment.
