Slender Man stabbing

Slender Man stabbing
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Location	Waukesha, Wisconsin
Coordinates	42.9814°N 88.2239°W / 42.9814; -88.2239
Date	May 31, 2014 (2014-05-31)
Attack type	Stabbing
Weapons	Knife
Deaths	0
Non-fatal injuries	1
Victims	One 12-year-old female
Assailants	Two 12-year-old females
Motive	To impress the fictional character "Slender Man" and prevent him from killing their families

The Slender Man stabbing occurred on Saturday, May 31, 2014 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, when two 12-year-old girls lured another girl of the same age into the woods and stabbed her 19 times, allegedly in order to impress the fictional character Slender Man. After being stabbed, the victim crawled to a road and lay on a sidewalk, where a cyclist found her and called 911. She was rushed to a hospital, at which point she was "one millimeter away from certain death," according to a criminal complaint. The victim was hospitalized for six days and has since recovered and returned to school.

Perpetrators

Both perpetrators were twelve years old at the time of the stabbing, as was the victim. All three were classmates, enrolled in the same middle school and had been at a sleepover at one suspect's home the night before. In August 2014, one girl had been ruled incompetent to stand trial. In December 2014, both girls were ruled competent to stand trial.

The girls have been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. They have been set to be tried as adults because in Wisconsin, "all murder and attempted-murder charges for children older than 10 start in adult court." Bail was set at $500,000 each. In February 2015, Anthony Cotton, an attorney for one of the two girls, filed a brief contending that his client should not have been charged with attempted first-degree homicide. According to the brief, the correct charge would be attempted murder second-degree because the girl believed Slender Man would have hurt her and her family if she hadn't killed on his behalf. In March 2015, the judge disagreed with this argument and ruled to keep the two in adult court. Their cases may still be moved to juvenile court for other reasons during hearings in May and June 2015. On August 10, a judge ruled that both teenagers will be tried in adult court. On August 21, Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren entered a "not guilty" plea on behalf of both girls after their attorneys declined to enter pleas. On September 30, 2015, Judge Bohren stayed the case against the two girls so that a state appeal court could determine whether they should be tried in adult or juvenile court. The decision was initially scheduled to be made in January of 2016, but was pushed back until April of that year due to an extension requested by the state of Wisconsin and the attorney of one of the accused. On April 15th, a judge refused to reduce the bond of the two girls, which had ben set at $500,000, due to the seriousness of the crime they were accused of having committed, and the belief that they posed a flight risk. The defendants are scheduled to reappear in court in July of 2016.

A conviction on first-degree charges in adult court could result in a sentence of up to 65 years in state prison, whereas a conviction in juvenile court could send them "to a secure facility until age 25."

Victim

The twelve-year-old victim was found by a bicyclist, badly wounded in a ditch on the side of the road after having managed to drag her way out of the forest. Police were called and she was immediately taken to a hospital and rushed into surgery. She had been stabbed nineteen times in the arms, legs, and abdomen with a large kitchen knife; two of the stab wounds were to major arteries. One of the two nearly penetrated her heart, but missed by less than a millimeter, and the other went through her diaphragm, cutting into her liver and stomach. The doctor noted her heart rate was elevated and her blood pressure was low, a sign that some of her organs were failing. She was in surgery for six hours. The doctor operating on the victim was forced to open her chest in order to repair the damage.

Motive

According to investigators, the two perpetrators had become convinced not only that Slender Man was real, but also that the only way to win his approval was by killing someone as a sacrifice. In February 2015, both girls accused of perpetrating the stabbing were interrogated by local police. In their interrogations, the girls said they planned the stabbing because they wanted to keep Slender Man from harming them and their families, and to become his "proxies". They believed they would become servants of the Slender Man and be allowed to live in his mansion, which they believed was in Nicolet National Forest. Each girl blamed the other for coming up with the plan to murder their friend.

One girl was initially found incompetent to stand trial, diagnosed by state psychiatrists with Childhood Onset Schizophrenia, and was remanded to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. She was returned to Winnebago in December 2015 by the Wisconsin State Court of Appeals for treatment and remained there until March of 2016, when doctors determined that her condition had stabilized.

Reactions

The stabbing resulted in extensive debate about the role of the internet in society and its impact on children. Russell Jack, Waukesha Police Chief, said that the stabbing "should be a wake-up call for all parents", adding that the Internet "is full of information and wonderful sites that teach and entertain," but that it "can also be full of dark and wicked things." John Egelhof, a retired agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, argued that the Internet had become a "blackhole" with the ability to expose children to a more sinister world. He further stated that the best way to avoid future incidents for parents to keep track of their children's web habits and to educate them on the differences between right and wrong. Shira Chess, an assistant professor of mass media arts at the University of Georgia, noted that creepypasta was no more dangerous than stories about vampires or zombies. She argued that creepypasta websites were actually beneficial, and that they gave people the opportunity to become better writers.

Max Rodgers, Utah's Director of Netsmartz, an internet safety and advocacy program, argued that students often have difficulty differentiating between the real and online world, and that events such as the Waukesha stabbing occur when these two worlds intersect. Jacqueline Woolley, director of the Children's Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, indicated that children were actually capable of distinguishing fiction from reality and that they were fully developed in this capacity by the age of nine.

On the morning of the Tuesday following the stabbing, a statement from the creator of Slender Man was posted to the Creepypasta Wiki, a website where stories about the character are collected, expressing condolences for all those involved. Sloshedtrain, the administrator of the Creepypasta Wiki, further argued that the stabbing was an isolated incident that did not accurately represent the creepypasta community. Sloshedtrained also argued that the Creepypasta Wiki was a literary website and that they did not condone murder or satanic rituals.

Members of the creepypasta community held a twenty-four-hour live stream on YouTube from June 13 to June 14, 2014, to raise money for the stabbing victim. Joe Jozwowski, an administrator on a creepypasta website, stated that members of the community wanted to help the victim and to demonstrate that they were not horrible people just because they liked scary stories.

On August 12, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker issued a proclamation declaring Wednesday, August 13, 2015 “Purple Hearts for Healing Day” and encouraged the people of Wisconsin to wear purple on that day to honor the victim of the stabbing. Additionally, he praised the strength and determination exhibited by the victim during her recovery.

A documentary on the incident called Beware the Slenderman was released by HBO Films in March 2016.