Sacrifice to the Slender Man

[Ahriman238]

I can almost hear the cries to ban all internet-fiction or even just the dark stuff already.

he morning began with a game of hide-and-seek among three 12-year-old girls in the park. But a far more sinister plan — inspired by an online horror meme — was in the works, Wisconsin prosecutors say.

As the middle-school friends played in a wooded area Saturday morning in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, one of them retrieved a five-inch blade tucked inside her waistband, according to a criminal complaint. She and another girl allegedly held the third one down and stabbed her 19 times all over her body.

The knife barely missed an artery near her heart, coming “one millimeter away from certain death,” the complaint said.

The suspects reportedly fled, leaving her to die. But the victim managed to crawl out of the woods until a bicyclist found her covered in blood on a sidewalk. She remained in stable condition Monday, authorities said.

The suspects appeared in Waukesha County court Monday and were charged as adults with first-degree attempted homicide. Bail was set at $500,000 each. (NBC News is not identifying the girls because of their age.)

The bizarre nature of the attack has stunned the community of 70,000. Even more unsettling, police say, is how the girls concocted their plan: They allegedly wanted to please an Internet meme known as the Slender Man.

The character is featured on the website Creepypasta Wiki, which compiles tales of fictional horror. But the girls allegedly believed Slender Man was real.

One of them allegedly told police that they wanted to become “proxies” of the faceless character, and would have to prove their dedication with killing, reported NBC affiliate WGBA in Green Bay. They planned to take their victim’s body to a part of Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's north woods, where Slender Man supposedly lives.

The girls had been concocting the attack since February, and were finally able to carry it out last weekend, according to the complaint. One of the suspects was allowed to have two friends over for a birthday sleepover Friday. The following morning, they went to the woods and allegedly set their plan into motion.

“I thought, dear God, this was really happening,” one of the suspects later told police, the complaint said.

The victim was stabbed repeatedly in the torso, legs and arms. Police say she screamed, “I hate you. I trusted you,” to her attackers, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

One of the girls later expressed some remorse, investigators said.

“The bad part of me wanted her to die, the good part of me wanted her to live,” the girl said, according to the complaint.

The girls each face up to 60 years in prison if convicted as adults, although their attorney could request the charges be brought to juvenile court instead. Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel told the Journal Sentinel that he would resist such a move.

“It’s troubling when a person lashes out in anger,” Schimel said. “It’s more troubling when they lash out in cold blood. Isn’t that the worst kind of killer, the cold-blooded killer?”

I'd push for juvie and extensive therapy over a trial as adults myself. We'll see how it turns out.

[Broomstick]

Fuck the perpetrators, I hope their victim gets extensive counseling. The betrayal of trust here is immense and can have worse long-term damage to a person's life than the physical wounds.

[Metahive]

I thought it was good netiquette to also post links? No serious comment before I can verify it ain't some sort of Onion prank.

[Ahriman238]

I thought it was good netiquette to also post links? No serious comment before I can verify it ain't some sort of Onion prank.

Sorry, I got it from NBC who seem to have gotten it from Reuters. Here.

[Metahive]

Thank you.

Fucking hell, it's one thing to be a fan of a lame internet meme, it's another to actually get murderously delusional about it. I wonder what kind of background those kids have.

[Broomstick]

I thought it was good netiquette to also post links? No serious comment before I can verify it ain't some sort of Onion prank.

Regrettably, not a hoax or prank. It's all over the news in this area.

[TheFeniX]

I'd push for juvie and extensive therapy over a trial as adults myself. We'll see how it turns out.

That should be what a trial determines. It's up to a jury/judge to decide what punishment/help they need. And even if convicted, they'd still go to juvenile hall, at least until the age of 18.

But I'm honestly interested in what kind of therapy can really help. This isn't some bullied kid over-reacting with violence. This is a premeditated (attempted) murder, planned out over months. There has to be more to this story than "lol internet memes made me do it" and there likely is, just like every other case of "<Insert violent media here> made me do X." I don't think I'm reaching when I say normal kids, even stupid ones, simply don't do shit like this.

[TheHammer]

Considering that online forums were involved, I would not be surprised to find there was some sick individual putting them up to it, either pretending to be "slenderman" or a "proxy".

[mr friendly guy]

I have heard it now said people are calling for that website ?creepypasta to be shut down. Come on. Those girls were screwed up in the head. The Slenderman website just seems to be a place where people tell horror fiction. Maybe people need to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

[loomer]

Fucking hell. I was there when Slenderman was made.

[Grumman]

The girls each face up to 60 years in prison if convicted as adults, although their attorney could request the charges be brought to juvenile court instead.

I hope he fails. Protecting their identities means people are going to let their guard down around them, which is precisely the weapon they used in this attempted murder. Con artists do not deserve anonymity.

[Metahive]

I hope he fails. Protecting their identities means people are going to let their guard down around them, which is precisely the weapon they used in this attempted murder. Con artists do not deserve anonymity.

Eh, I would wait with the public shaming until they have actually been proven guilty. Only hypothetically, what would you do if you their identities were revealed, their faces plastered all over the US, the torches and pitchforks brought out and then it turns out they were innocent?

Fucking hell. I was there when Slenderman was made.

And where were you when they ruined him through rabid overexposure? [AshKetchum] Loomer, I Blame YOU![/AshKetchum}

[Grumman]

I hope he fails. Protecting their identities means people are going to let their guard down around them, which is precisely the weapon they used in this attempted murder. Con artists do not deserve anonymity.

Eh, I would wait with the public shaming until they have actually been proven guilty. Only hypothetically, what would you do if you their identities were revealed, their faces plastered all over the US, the torches and pitchforks brought out and then it turns out they were innocent?

You might as well ask what I'd do if the victim was really stabbed by an invisible unicorn. The victim is alive and suffering from wounds that are obviously not self-inflicted, she has identified her attackers, and the attackers have admitted that they were responsible. There is no credible scenario in which they are not guilty.

[Metahive]

Eh, I would wait with the public shaming until they have actually been proven guilty. Only hypothetically, what would you do if you their identities were revealed, their faces plastered all over the US, the torches and pitchforks brought out and then it turns out they were innocent?

[Grumman]

I'm not going to dignify your hypothetical with an answer because your hypothetical is gibberish. For it to make sense, you'd have to change the parameters we already know such that they could turn out to be innocent, at which point the question becomes irrelevant to my comment and the thread as a whole.

[Metahive]

I'm not going to dignify your hypothetical with an answer because your hypothetical is gibberish. For it to make sense, you'd have to change the parameters we already know such that they could turn out to be innocent, at which point the question becomes irrelevant to my comment and the thread as a whole.

What if a third party is coercing or blackmailing both victim and would-be accused? There, would that be so far out the ordinary?

Can I have an answer now, please?

[AniThyng]

Eh, I would wait with the public shaming until they have actually been proven guilty. Only hypothetically, what would you do if you their identities were revealed, their faces plastered all over the US, the torches and pitchforks brought out and then it turns out they were innocent?

Is this hypothetical only because they are minors? Because we publicize adults accused ALL THE TIME regardless of the legal status of their guilt/innocence.

[Metahive]

Is this hypothetical only because they are minors? Because we publicize adults accused ALL THE TIME regardless of the legal status of their guilt/innocence.

No, it's because they're green Martians.


D'uh, of course it's because they're minors.

[Purple]

Eh, I would wait with the public shaming until they have actually been proven guilty. Only hypothetically, what would you do if you their identities were revealed, their faces plastered all over the US, the torches and pitchforks brought out and then it turns out they were innocent?

Is this hypothetical only because they are minors? Because we publicize adults accused ALL THE TIME regardless of the legal status of their guilt/innocence.

The operand word here being "we", or rather "you". Where I am from, and I assume in other places across Europe too we do not publicize the names of the accused before conviction. I know you will just say this is an irrelevant nitpick due to the fact that it is happening in america but still.

[Grumman]

What if a third party is coercing or blackmailing both victim and would-be accused? There, would that be so far out the ordinary?

Yes, that would be out of the ordinary. It would require that the real culprit decide to coerce the two scapegoats rather than just murdering all three, and to coerce the victim rather than relying on the fact that she appeared to be mortally wounded. It would require that all three girls went along with a plan that involves murdering one and putting the other two in prison for decades, and that neither of the two girls being framed would take any action to try to help their friend.

But even if that was the case, we would still today be justified in coming to the conclusion that the girls are guilty. Even if at some future date it turns out that victim and accused alike are lying to put the rest of us off the scent, you're still an idiot if you figure it out based on the contents of your arse instead of any sort of actual evidence or logical reasoning.

[mr friendly guy]

The hypothetical proposed reminds me of an episode of Walker Texas Ranger where the death row inmate was really coerced by the real killer, who threaten to kill the inmate's family if he didn't take the rap. I am not going jump up and down until they had their day in court, but I must say the hypothetical is really far fetched.

[Metahive]

The hypothetical isn't offered to present adequate judgement to the perps of this particular case but to examine whether this "TREAT 'EM LIKE ADULTS!" attitude is in any way productive or helpful.
That innocents could be caught up in this is just part of the problem, there's never such thing as a 100% open and shut sure case! The other is what is achieved by treating 12-year olds as adults and shoving them behind bars for 60 years.

O yeah, and this:

Protecting their identities means people are going to let their guard down around them, which is precisely the weapon they used in this attempted murder. Con artists do not deserve anonymity.

They already have the attention of law enforcement, which is the most important thing. No one else is in the need to know their names because it's unlikely they'll be able to go after anyone else. This is what I would call far-fetched.

[Zixinus]

I doubt that this would have really made a difference, but adults: this is why you need to put on child-filters and talk about what your children are seeing on the internet. Creepy-pasta is not for 12-year olds.

[Raw Shark]

I doubt that this would have really made a difference, but adults: this is why you need to put on child-filters and talk about what your children are seeing on the internet. Creepy-pasta is not for 12-year olds.

...or... you could just teach your kids that there are fucking psychos on the internet who should not be listened to while still allowing them to explore the world...

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that a ten or twelve year old child is not well equipped to understand the difference between 'crazy psycho' and 'part of a mature, balanced adulthood.' If they are to have any chance of doing it at all, they have to have a very strong inner sense of right and wrong, and it normally takes more time for that to develop.