A Canadian man was convicted of crimes he did not commit after police copied a Skyrim-inspired username incorrectly. The actual suspect’s account contained two underscores, but investigators entered only one and built an entire prosecution around a completely different person.

Brandon Klayme spent 18 months in prison even though investigators found nothing on his computers, phones or other digital devices connecting him to the offenses. In July 2026, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal reviewed the case, overturned every conviction and went further than simply declaring the original trial unsafe: it formally recognized Klayme as factually innocent. The catastrophic error began with a reference to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. American investigators were searching for a Kik user named “fus__ro_dah,” a handle inspired by the game’s famous Unrelenting Force dragon shout. The suspect’s username contained two underscores after “fus.” The official request sent to Kik contained only one: “fus_ro_dah.”

One Incorrect Username Redirected the Entire Investigation

The case began in Wisconsin in 2018, after the mother of a twelve-year-old girl discovered sexual messages on her daughter’s phone. A forensic examination identified 125 Kik messages exchanged between the child and an adult using the account name “fus__ro_dah.” The Dane County Sheriff’s Department contacted Kik in an attempt to identify the account holder. Because the subpoena contained the single-underscore version of the username, however, the company returned information belonging not to the suspect but to Brandon Klayme. His email account had been accessed through a Canadian IP address, prompting the American investigators to transfer the case to police in Halifax.

Canadian officers searched Klayme’s home and seized his phones and computers. They found none of the conversations, no illegal images and no evidence that he had ever contacted the victim. Investigators could not even establish that Klayme had accessed Kik during the relevant period. Nevertheless, he was arrested in February 2020, convicted in April 2023 and sentenced in January 2024 to 18 months in prison followed by another 18 months of probation.

The Tiny Discrepancy Was Found Only During the Appeal

The username mismatch survived the original investigation and the entire trial without being noticed, including by the defense. Klayme’s legal team finally identified it years later, during the closing stages of preparing his appeal, when they compared the account listed in the police subpoena with the one recovered from the child’s phone. Once prosecutors reviewed the corrected information, they agreed that the conviction could not stand. A proper request for the double-underscore username would apparently have pointed investigators toward another man, named Jay, whose IP address was believed to be located in California. That person has not been brought to justice.

The Court of Appeal acquitted Klayme on every charge, cancelled the remainder of his probation and issued an unusually direct conclusion: “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.” A missing underscore was therefore not a minor clerical mistake, but an error that removed years from an innocent man’s life.

Source: 3DJuegos.