Title: Assault suspect led group with accused killers

Source: Eastside Journal (Bellevue, WA), No date available (if you know the date of this article, please write me with that information)

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The man suspected of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend earlier this week played out fantasy scenarios in the same role-playing group as one of the suspects in the Wilson family slayings.

David Lee Norris, 20, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges he tried to kill the 16-year-old girl he had dated for two years until their break-up a month ago.

Norris led a fantasy role-playing group that at one point included Alex Baranyi, who with his best friend, David Anderson, is suspected of killing Bill and Rose Wilson and their daughters, Kim, 20, and Julia, 16.

Norris remains in King County Jail on $500,000 bail on charges of first-degree attempted murder and first-degree burglary for hiding for six hours in the girl's home early Sunday before beating her on the head with a hammer and stabbing her with a kitchen knife.

Investigators say Norris attacked the girl because he was distraught over their break-up and had begun thinking of killing himself and taking her with him. Norris is accused of planning the attack by diagramming the girl's home and writing a list of steps to the crime.

Police will examine Norris' involvement in role-playing as they develop a picture of his background, but a department spokesman was careful to separate Norris' hobby from the attack.

“There is no tie to gothic, fantasy role-playing,'' Bellevue Police Lt. Bill Ferguson said. Role-playing may offer ideas for planning such an attack, he added, but most people involved in fantasy games have no intention of committing crimes.

“Some people are prone to doing those things, whether they are involved in role-playing or not,'' Ferguson said.

While confirming that Norris knew Baranyi through the role-playing group, Ferguson said it is not clear how well the two were acquainted.

Wearing jail-issue red clothing and large, black-framed glasses, Norris stood by silently as his attorney told King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman his client would plead not guilty to the charges. 

In addition to his bail being raised from $50,000, Norris was ordered to have no contact with the girl or her family.

Outside the courtroom after the arraignment, defense attorney Kevin Hogan described how Norris' arrest has affected his parents and older siblings.

“The family is stunned. They're shocked beyond belief,'' Hogan said.

The injured girl's aunt declined to be interviewed, saying only that shock over the attack reaches beyond the immediate family.

“It's the family, the extended family, friends, the whole community,'' she said.

The girl remained in satisfactory condition yesterday at Harborview Medical Center, spokesman Larry Zalin said. She suffered a collapsed lung, eight stab wounds to her right arm, a skull fracture and severed tendons in her hand, officials said.

In charging papers, prosecutors said Norris entered the girl's home around 2 a.m. and after realizing she wasn't home, waited in a downstairs laundry room for her to return.

According to the charging papers, Norris remained in the laundry room when the girl arrived at 4 a.m. with a male friend, whose voice Norris recognized as someone from a fantasy role-playing group he led at the Darkholder comics store in Eastgate.

Norris listened through the laundry-room door as the girl and her friend talked, charging papers said.

When the girl and her friend stepped outside, Norris paced around the downstairs, then returned to the laundry room when he heard them coming back inside, charging papers said. After the friend left around 8 a.m., Norris attacked, charging papers said.

“The reason is jealousy and his inability to accept the break-up of the relationship,''  Ferguson said.