Wisconsin – Prosecutors say two 12-year-old southeastern Wisconsin girls stabbed their 12-year-old friend nearly to death in the woods to please a faceless mythological creature called Slender Man from a horror game, and stories they learned about from a website named creepypasta.com.
Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier were charged as adults with First-Degree Attempted Homicide Monday in Waukesha County Circuit Court; they each face up to 60 years in prison if convicted. A court commissioner set bail at $500,000 cash per child.
According to police, the girls had been planning to kill their friend for months and finally made the attempt in a park on Saturday morning, after a slumber party.
One of the girls told detectives they were trying to become “proxies” of Slender Man. They planned to run away to the demon’s forest mansion after the slaying, police said.
“I recognize their young ages but it’s still unbelievable,” Court Commissioner Thomas Pieper said during one of the girls’ initial court appearances Monday.
One girl held the 12-year-old victim down while the other stabbed her repeatedly in her arms, legs and torso. The victim was viciously and brutally stabbed 19 times; she sustained wounds to her heart, liver, pancreas, and stomach. One stab wound missed a major artery near her heart by a millimeter, doctors told police.
According to authorities, the girl is in serious but stable condition.
According to the criminal complaint, one of the girls told an investigator they began planning to kill their friend in December. The other girl told police they decided to kill her so they could become proxies of Slender Man, who would accept them and let them live with him in his mansion in the Nicolet National Forest.
The other girl said she sees Slender Man in her dreams. She said he watches her and can read her mind and teleport.
“It’s extremely disturbing as a parent and as chief of police,” Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said at a news conference ahead of the court appearances Monday.
According to the criminal complaint, the girls invited their friend to a slumber party on Friday evening, They planned to kill her during the night so they wouldn’t have to look into her eyes, one girl told police, and then run away. They decided to put it off, but the next day, during a hide-and-seek game in a wooded park, they attacked their friend with a knife. One girl told the other to “go ballistic, go crazy,” according to the complaint.
The victim began to cry and scream that she hated them as she stumbled away, one of the girls told police.
The girls left the victim lying in the woods because they thought she would be dead by morning. Amazingly, she was able to muster up enough strength and crawl to a road where a bicyclist found her lying on the sidewalk and called 9-1-1.
When police arrived she was able to give them the name of one of the girls who attacked her.
She was immediately rushed into surgery, police said.
One of the girl’s attorneys, Donna Kuchler, asked Pieper to remove reporters from the courtroom because she planned to get her client waived into juvenile court, however, Pieper refused.
Police say Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier have not shown any remorse and at times seemed to find the entire situation amusing.
The family of one of the girls reportedly sat “stone faced” during the court proceedings.
Police, whom say they are familiar with Slender Man, do not believe the game nor the stories found on creepypasta.com had anything to do with the pure hatred the girls displayed in the brutal stabbing.
A full statement from creepypasta.com was released on the front page of their website.
Both girls are due back in court on June 11 for a status conference.