An innocent man spent 18 months in prison because police misread his Skyrim user name
Brandon Klayme spent 18 months imprisoned after being wrongfully convicted of child luring and possession of child pornography in Nova Scotia, Canada. His arrest in February 2020 stemmed from a Wisconsin police investigation into illicit messages exchanged on the messaging platform Kik. The suspect they were pursuing had the username “fus__ro_dah,” a reference to the Unrelenting Force dragon shout from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
During the appeal process, Klayme’s lawyers discovered the critical error that led to his arrest: police had misidentified their suspect based on the username. The actual suspect possessed two underscores in their username after “fus,” but investigators either failed to account for this distinction or recorded it incorrectly, causing them to pursue and arrest Klayme instead of the correct perpetrator.
Klayme was formally declared innocent in July 2026 after being convicted and imprisoned from 2020 to 2023. The case highlights how minor details in digital investigations can have catastrophic consequences when misread or overlooked, demonstrating the critical importance of precision in law enforcement investigations and thorough verification in criminal cases.