Man Confesses to Murder After Seeing Gibson's Film

Mel Gibson's controversial but lucrative depiction of the final hours in the life of Jesus has moved a Texas man to seek redemption by confessing to the murder of his pregnant girlfriend.

The conversion of Dan Leach, 21, apparently as a result of viewing The Passion of the Christ, is the latest in a chain of revelations since the film's release in America a month ago. The film opened in Britain yesterday.

Along with $300m (£166m) in box office earnings - much of which will return to Gibson's pockets as the main financier - the film has reportedly induced criminals to repent, married couples to come to blows, anti-semitic outbreaks, and at least one heart attack in the climactic crucifixion scene.

Mr Leach told police he had strangled Ashley Nicole Wilson, 19, in January because he did not want the child she was carrying.

He forged a note to make the murder look like suicide, but a spokesman from the Fort Bend county sheriff's department said on Thursday that Leach had second thoughts. "He mentioned that speaking with a friend and seeing the movie made him feel remorse," the spokesman said.

Leach's confession is the second change of heart attributed to the film. Two years after holding up a bank in Palm Beach, Florida, James Anderson turned himself in to police, allegedly convinced by the film's message of forgiveness.

The experience of other moviegoers has proved fatal. On the first day of the film's release, Peggy Law, reportedly in her 50s and in good health, was pronounced dead after she collapsed in a cinema in Wichita, Kansas, during the crucifixion scene.

Earlier this week, a Presbyterian minister in Brazil, Jose Geraldo Soares, who reserved two cinemas at a local shopping mall for his congregants in the town of Belo Horizonte, died while watching the film with his wife.

Analysts says the film, criticised before its release for its depiction of Jews, will take more money than the third of the Lord of the Rings films, the Return of the King.