[News] Girl stabbed 19 times by friends to please Slenderman

[GreenGoo]

Has nobody played Minecraft?

What do you think the inspiration for the Enderman was?

Hah. When I asked my daughter if she new who slenderman was, she said no, is he enderman? And I said "no". I had heard my middle kid go on and on about enderman but didn't make the connection. I don't play minecraft. Now I'll have to tidy up that mess when I get home.

[Isgrimnur]

The terms idiot, imbecile, and moron were all medical terms of varying "mental age" and have been used at times in legal definitions as well. However, to the majority of US society, they no longer have a meaning outside of the insult category.

[ImLawBoy]

I don't think ILB was moderating in an official capacity. He was asking people not to use the term as a general forum member. Any forum member has the right to do the same thing.

To be clear, this is exactly right. This was an "Admin hat off" type of discussion, as it didn't go anywhere near violating our standards of conduct, IMO.

The terms idiot, imbecile, and moron were all medical terms of varying "mental age" and have been used at times in legal definitions as well. However, to the majority of US society, they no longer have a meaning outside of the insult category.

Right. If I were to start calling people on those terms, I think people would be quite justified in calling me the PC police. (They'd also likely be able to accurately call me a hypocrite.) I think the distinction here is that those terms are so far removed from their previous clinical usage that (almost) no one really relates those terms with intellectual disability anymore. "Retarded" may get to that point eventually, but at this point it's still pretty clearly an allusion to ID.

[GreenGoo]

The wiki page on Intellectual Disability is quite informative on the subject, including the euphemism treadmill, which I believe was mentioned earlier.

[msteelers]

edit2: Wow, what a disjointed and random entity. I hope their on screen implementation was more interesting than the jumble of randomness the wiki describes.

I thought the same thing, but on screen they are some of my favorite villains.

[Isgrimnur]

Absolutely. They are the best villains to come out of the reboot, and have had a definitive impact on the storyline of the Doctor and his companions.

[gameoverman]

I thought the weeping angels were great the first time, then not so much. Mostly because I'd prefer the presentation stayed pure horror and it started going on a more adventure path.

Marble Hornets was a pretty good visual presentation of the Slenderman story. I wouldn't stab someone over it in excitement though.

[Isgrimnur]

Non compos mentis

One of two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls charged as an adult with stabbing a classmate to please a fictional online horror character is mentally incompetent and can't stand trial, a judge said Friday.

The judge also ordered that she be committed for treatment. She will be evaluated and treated either in a hospital or in a juvenile detention center, where she currently is being held. Doctors have a year to restore her to competency in order to proceed with a trial. If it cannot be restored, she could be held in a treatment center.
...
Dr. Brooke Lundbohm of the Wisconsin Forensic Unit testified Friday that she interviewed the girl in June. The girl claims to see and hear things that others cannot — including unicorns, Slender Man and Voldemort, an antagonist in the Harry Potter series, Lundbohm said.

"Despite our very serious conversation, she would laugh almost hysterically," Lundbohm testified, noting that the girl squatted on her interview chair and was in near constant motion.

A psychiatrist hired by the defense, Kenneth Robbins, testified that girl was more concerned about her relationship with Slender Man than she was about going to prison. She said she communicated telepathically with Slender Man and feared he would harm her or her family if she said too much about him, Robbins said.

He said she also speaks and sees Voldemort's snake and another fictional character, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

"For her, these are real characters," Robbins said. "She sees them and they have discussions back and forth."

[Isgrimnur]

Trial is on

Two Wisconsin girls who allegedly stabbed a friend over Slender Man were found competent today to stand trial.

A Wisconsin judge found [the] 13-year-old ... competent, while the second suspect ... waived her right to a hearing and was as a result ruled competent.

Testimony from three doctors who evaluated [the 13yo] -- one hired by the prosecution, the other two by her defense -- presented their findings before the judge.

The prosecution's doctor found her competent, while the defense's doctors found her incompetent.

When [she] herself was asked by Judge Michael Bohren if she considered herself competent, [she] said, "I consider myself incompetent, sir."

By stating such, under Wisconsin law, [she] set a very high burden of proof for the prosecution to clear and the judge ruled that they had met the burden.

[Teggy]

I hoped they watched the SVU version of this, because then they'll know that the girls planned to have one girl be the crazy one and go to an institution instead of jail while the other claimed she was forced into it, even though she was secretly still total Slenderman buddies with the other girl.

[Carpet_pissr]

So under Wisconsin law, if you, as defendant, merely state that you are incompetent, that automatically makes it much harder for the prosecution to claim you are competent to stand trial?

That seems like a very easy "out" if you ask me, who knows next to nothing about law. I wonder if that kind of law is common in other states?

Would love some additional color on that from any attorneys in the house.

[Isgrimnur]

No change of holding facility:

A judge has denied a request to move a 12-year-old girl to a psychiatric center after she was accused of stabbing a classmate to please the horror character Slender Man.

The judge also denied a motion to reduce her $500,000 bail to a signature bond. Her attorney, Anthony Cotton, says the defendant needs treatment for schizophrenia.

The judge was concerned about her being a flight risk, but Cotton says she has no friends and no car and couldn't get far.

[Isgrimnur]

Trial delayed pending appeal:

A Wisconsin judge on Monday suspended the case of two 13-year-old girls accused of trying to kill a classmate near Milwaukee while an appeals court decides whether to review a decision to keep the case in adult court.

Judge Michael Bohren removed the girls' October trial date from his calendar and delayed hearing pre-trial motions, the Journal Sentinel reported.
...
Defense attorneys are appealing Bohren's August decision to keep the girls' case in adult court, where convictions could send them to prison for up to 45 years. As juveniles, they could be incarcerated for up to three years and then supervised until age 18.

The Court of Appeals has not indicated whether it will review Bohren's decision.

All three girls were 12 years old at the time of the attack. Anyone 10 years or older who is charged with first-degree attempted homicide is automatically considered an adult under Wisconsin law.

[Isgrimnur]

Appeal verdict

Two Waukesha girls who were 12 when prosecutors say they tried to kill their sixth grade classmate are properly charged as adults, the Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The decision affirmed a trial judge's ruling last year that Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier had failed to show, "by a preponderance of evidence," that they should be transferred from adult court to juvenile court.
...
Angie Geyser said she was disappointed and noted the opinion misstates that her daughter, diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia, refuses medication. Morgan started medication after her civil commitment to a state mental hospital about seven months ago.

"She has developed insight into her illness, and wants to continue on the path to recovery," Angie Geyser said. "Keeping her in the adult system, with the possibility of eventually ending up incarcerated in an adult prison, will do nothing but ensure that this does not happen."
...
Bohren found that, despite evidence of the girls' non-violent histories and psychological issues, having them prosecuted as juveniles would "unduly depreciate the seriousness of the offense," noting that they had discussed the crime for months beforehand, lied to the victim when they told her not to move and they would get help, and tried — however unlikely — to flee by starting to walk to northern Wisconsin.

If convicted of attempted first-degree intentional homicide as adults, the girls would face up to 45 years in prison. If adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court, they could be incarcerated three years then subjected to intensive community supervision and treatment until age 18.

That distinction also weighed heavily in Bohren's decision.
...
The Court of Appeals recounted testimony that minor girls, whether convicted as adults or juveniles, would be processed and serve their first years of sentence and treatment at Copper Lake School for Girls, part of the state's troubled youth prison complex.

A key difference is that, as adult felons, the girls nor their parents would be involved in the planning of their transition to adult prison or community supervision, while as juveniles, their families would be an integral part of that planning.

Bohren found that would not affect the adequacy of treatment.

[Jaymon]

There is very little mention of the childrens parents among all these articles. Have they got anything to say? Do they exist? Have they been brought up on charges?

[Isgrimnur]

Judge denies release from psychiatric institute for woman involved in 'Slender Man' attack

A Wisconsin judge has refused to release from a mental institution a woman who is serving a sentence for brutally stabbing a peer as a child to earn the favor of the fictional horror character Slender Man in a case that shocked the nation a decade ago.

Morgan Geyser, now 21, in January had requested to be released from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, and proceedings started Wednesday and continued Thursday.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren on Thursday determined Geyser posed a risk of harming herself or others, or of damaging property, and denied her release.
...
In Wednesday’s proceedings, two psychologists testified. One said Geyser claimed she had been faking psychotic symptoms, which “doesn’t line up” with years of observation and treatment, The Associated Press reported.

Dr. Kenneth Robbins, another doctor who prepared a conditional release report for Geyser, said in court Thursday he believed it was “an appropriate time” for her to be conditionally released to a group home.

“Morgan has improved quite dramatically and needs things that the institution can no longer offer,” he said. “No suggestion that she’s dangerous at this time and the kinds of things that Morgan needs, in my view, help with socialization, help with education, help with becoming independent, are things that Winnebago can no longer provide in an effective way.”

[Jaymann]

What if it really was Slender Man?

[hepcat]

I refuse to believe he wouldn’t have put on some weight by this point. At best I’d say he’s Average to Chubby Man these days.

[Freyland]

I refuse to believe he wouldn’t have put on some weight by this point. At best I’d say he’s Average to Chubby Man these days.

#wegovyman

[GreenGoo]

I refuse to believe he wouldn’t have put on some weight by this point. At best I’d say he’s Average to Chubby Man these days.

#wegovyman

Hah! I didn't know what that was. Now I do.

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