The first time the name "Slender Man" appeared anywhere in print or on screen was on the entertainment web site on 10 June 2009. It's a crowd-sourced horror story that hearkens back to boogeyman tales of old. The Internet can also be full of dark and wicked things.īut although it's true there are "dark and wicked things" to be found on the Internet (as in life, generally), and children's use of the Internet ought indeed to be supervised, to suggest that the Slenderman materials viewed by the accused are "wicked," in any deeper sense than, say, a Stephen King novel is "wicked," is to misunderstand them. The Slenderman "mythos," as the accumulated stories, images, and commentary related to the character have come to be called, is a blend of fiction and folklore. It is full of information and wonderful sites that teach and entertain. The Internet has changed the way we live. Keeping children safe is more challenging than in years past. The incident was cast as a cautionary tale for parents by Waukesha police chief Russell Jack, who cited it as a consequence of allowing children unsupervised access to the Internet: In December 2017, Weier was sentenced to 25 years in a psychiatric institution. The accused were tried as adults and pleaded guilty to the attack but argued in court they weren't responsible for their actions due to mental illness. The victim, Payton Leutner, recovered, though she still lives in fear for her life, her mother says. To do so, they’d have to kill someone.Īlthough months in the planning, their mission did not succeed. In early 2014, Geyser and Weier decided to become what they called “proxies” of Slender Man, thereby proving their dedication to him and his existence to skeptics. Under interrogation, they claimed they did it to appease a supernatural being called Slenderman (aka Slender Man), who was described in a Newsweek article as "an evil character who lives only on the Internet," but in whom the accused attackers said they fervently believed:Īccording to the criminal complaint obtained by Newsweek, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12, discovered Slender Man on Creepypasta Wiki, a website dedicated to Internet horror stories (its tagline: “Proudly hosting 12,151 of your worst nightmares since 2010”). They admitted to planning and executing the crime. The attack weapon was found among their belongings. The other two girls were arrested and charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. She told police her friends had attacked her. Seriously injured, the victim managed to crawl to a nearby road, where she was found and taken to a hospital. On , three 12-year-old girls embarked on a "birdwatching" expedition in a wooded area near their homes in Waukesha, Wisconsin that ended in one of them being stabbed 19 times and left for dead.
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