ELM MOTT, Texas - A Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a "nerd" over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson.
As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states' borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business.
When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy's trailer down.
Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze.
"I didn't think anybody was stupid enough to try to kill anybody over an Internet fight," said John G. Anderson, 59, who suffered smoke inhalation while trying to put out the 2005 blaze that caused $50,000 in damage to his trailer and computer equipment.
The feud started when Anderson, who runs a haunted house near Waco, joined a picture-sharing Web site and posted his artwork and political views. After he blocked some people from his page because of insults and foul language, they retaliated by making obscene digitally altered pictures of him, he said.
Anderson, who went by the screen name "Johnny Darkness," traded barbs with Tavares, aka "PyroDice."
Investigators say Tavares boiled over when Anderson called him a nerd and posted a digitally altered photo making Tavares look like a skinny boy in high-water pants, holding a gun and a laptop under a "Revenge of the Nerds" sign.
First the Trentcoat Mafia now this.....what has the world come to when you can't even make fun of nerds anymore? There goes my day job.... and since when is a trailer worth $50,0000? Sounds like insurance fraud to me.
Judging from his photo he seems pretty nerdy,besides nerds are smart, he should be proud.
