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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Slenderman Stabbing Teens Return to Court

WAUKESHA, Wis. (CN) — The young girls who say the fictional horror character Slenderman inspired their attempted murder of a classmate head to court next month as the years-old charges against them slog toward trial.

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier were arrested on May 31, 2014, hours after trying to kill Payton Leutner outside Geyser's house where the girls, all 12, had just had a sleepover. They told police they had been planning the murder for months and were on the way to Slenderman's home, which they believed to be in the Nicolet National Forest.

Leutner recovered, and her assailants were deemed competent that December to stand trial as adults on charges of first-degree intentional attempted homicide in Waukesha County Circuit Court.

The process has stretched on since then as the girls have grown behind bars into teens. This past July, an appeals court ruled that the girls will receive adequate mental health treatment in the adult court system.

Dr. Deborah Collins has diagnosed Geyser, painted as the ringleader of the attack, with early-onset schizophrenia and oppositional defiant disorder. Weier's attorneys meanwhile have argued that their client was spurred on by a shared delusion.

Weier apparently showed improvement soon after the girls were separated. During police interviews in 2014, she voiced concern that not killing Leutner would provoke retribution against her and her family from Slenderman.

Collins meanwhile has said Geyser has stopped talking with the characters she hallucinated since receiving anti-psychotic medication. Geyser refused medication until recently, crying at the prospect of losing contact with her "friends," which include characters from Harry Potter and Star Trek stories, according to testimony.

With the girls having changed their pleas to not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, the court has selected two doctors to evaluate them.

Both cases are scheduled for a motion hearing on Oct. 13 at 2:30 p.m., where the court will hear Geyser's argument for a change of venue due to extensive media coverage, and Weier's motion for a jury taken from a different county.

Judge Michael O. Bohren is presiding.

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