Girl in ‘Slender Man’ Attack Improves, But Questions Remain
Girls are accused of stabbing friend 19 times in Internet-inspired plot.
June 5, 2014— -- The 12-year-old victim of a bizarre stabbing by two friends after a sleepover continues to recover, with hospital officials in Wisconsin upgrading the girl to fair condition.
Her friends, identified as Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12, are being charged as adults with attempted first degree intentional homicide, accused of stabbing the victim 19 times on Saturday. They have yet to enter a plea.
According to court documents, the friends believed they would become agents for a fictional Internet character named “Slender Man” by carrying out the killing. You need to kill a person to show your dedication to Slender Man, Weier allegedly stated, according to court documents.
“Many people do not believe Slender Man is real,” she allegedly said, and she wanted to “prove the skeptics wrong.”
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Law experts remain perplexed. Wendy Murphy, a criminal attorney and academic at the New England School of Law, says the girls accused in the stabbing have “no conscience” – and she wonders if warning signs preceded their alleged actions.
“I would be surprised if, when all is said and done, this all really came out of nowhere,” Murphy said.
Mark Wegner, the principal of the school the girls attended, told ABC News that school officials were stunned by news of the stabbing.
“They were good kids. There wasn’t any kind of issues, any problems with discipline, anything like that,” Wegner said. “There was nothing that was on the radar for any issues at all here at the school.”
The passing bicyclist who spotted the bleeding victim and called 911, saving her, posted a statement on his door Wednesday.
“Our family wishes to offer its thoughts and prayers to the victim, her family and the entire community, which is profoundly shocked and saddened by the recent event,” the statement reads.
The situation has rocked Waukesha, a 70,000-population city ranked by Money Magazine as one of the “100 Best Places to Live” in 2012.
Wegner said the community’s character has emerged due to the situation.
“When things like this happen, people naturally kind of pull together, and I think that is occurring already,” Wegner said. “It’s a tragic situation but something that will pull us together as well.”