Fantasy worlds used to be a happy escape from harsh realities, but now, murder and mayhem are running amok in virtual reality, too.

The real-world legal system is woefully backlogged, and now people are ending up in court for stuff their avatars do online. Exhibit A: Amy Taylor and David Pollard, a British couple who met in an Internet chat room and got married in 2005 -- both in real life and with an online wedding ceremony for their avatars Dave Barmy and Laura Skye. Now they're getting a divorce in both worlds.

Taylor filed for divorce after catching her husband having sex with an avatar prostitute, and later starting an online affair with another avatar in Second Life.

The case went through Second Life courts, and now is nearly finalized in the real court system.

But there's a happy ending -- for now, anyway. Pollard is engaged to his new Second Life girlfriend. And Taylor met someone new while playing the online game World of Warcraft.

Barmy vs. Skye is messy, but at least it didn't end in virtual violence. A Japanese woman killed off her virtual husband in Maple Story, an interactive game that has a worldwide following.

The woman, upset when her virtual husband divorced her, logged on with his user name and password and deleted his character. The man wasn't physically harmed, but he was upset to find his avatar dead when he logged on.

Virtual homicide is tough to prosecute, but the woman now faces a possible jail term or fine for illegally accessing a computer and information.

Crime isn't new in the popular virtual community of Second Life, which has an economy and currency, and where participants create goods for sale. Even though the "stuff" isn't real, there are people trying to steal it: Goods and property have been illegally copied.

Virtual newspaper the Second Life Herald has been covering an ongoing violent gang war between Don Zito Corleone and the rival Nicholas mob. The paper also has covered Second Life murders, complete with colorful, graphic screen shots.

And in the near future, some jobs may be outsourced to the virtual world: An online news network called News at Seven plans to use avatars as news anchors.

Developed at the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University, the site will eventually compile customized news reports based on individual users' interests. It will gather video, images and audio from other sites, along with opinions from the blogosphere. The animated avatar/anchors provide running commentary as the videos play onscreen. (Samples of what it will look like are on the newsatseven.com site.)

A new version of News at Seven will be launching in the coming weeks on zap2it.com.

Some day, we may be virtually attending business meetings. Altadyn, a company that specializes in 3-D virtual world technology, is introducing Online Meeting, a platform that is part teleconference, part virtual world.

Participants in multiple locations will watch avatar-conducted presentations, and communicate and interact via instant messaging and Skype. Each meeting participant will have his or her avatar present in the virtual conference room. These rooms can be tailored to the client's specifications.

The new technology is designed to be more entertaining and inclusive than the standard teleconference.

Just don't let your avatar fall asleep during the presentation.