The Matrix hype is giving me the shits. In that spirit, I bring you this article showing how The Matrix is being blamed for a number of murders.

Josh Cooke, a 19-year-old in Oakton, Virginia, owned a trenchcoat like the one worn by Neo, the character played by Keanu Reeves in the movie, and kept a poster of his hero on his bedroom wall. Then he bought a gun similar to the one used by Neo to fight evil.
In February, he shot his father and mother in the basement of their home and then called the police. His lawyers say he believed that he was living inside the Matrix. [...]
The Matrix seems to have spawned other imitators. Last week in Ohio, a woman was found not guilty of killing the professor whose house she rented, on the grounds of insanity. Tonda Lynn Ansley, 37, said she had had dreams which turned out not to be dreams. The local prosecutor said that, "in her warped perception", the film played a part in the killing.
In San Francisco in 2000, Vadim Mieseges, 27, killed his landlady, Ella Wong, and pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity. The police who interviewed him said he had made "reference to being sucked into the Matrix".

But the real killer (as it were) is this one:

The young man accused of taking part in last year's sniper attacks in the Washington area has also cited the film.
"Free yourself of the Matrix," wrote Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, one of the two defendants, in his jail cell.