The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that two 12-year old girls from Waukesha, Wisconsin, attempted to murder their friend after planning the homicide for months as a tribute to a fictional character called Slender Man, a character from a horror story website called Creepypasta Wiki.
The two girls, Morgan E. Geyser and Anissa E. Weier, have had their names released to the public because although they are juveniles, they are being tried in adult court and also because they stabbed their victim almost 20 times and left her to die.
Geyser intended to celebrate her birthday on May 30; she and Weier planned to invite over their friend to Geyser’s house and murder her there. According to what Weier told police, the plan started after school last Friday, when she and Geyser went to Weier’s house to pack a backpack which they would use after the murder to travel to Slender Man’s mansion, which the girls believed was in the Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin. Weier had informed Geyser that they needed to kill their friend to be worthy of Slender Man, whom Weier believed was the “leader” of Creepypasta.
Leaving Weier’s house, the girls went to Geyser’s home, where Geyser’s father took them to pick up the friend and take all of them to Skateland. After returning to Geyser’s house that night, they slept in Geyser’s room. The girls’ initial plan was to kill their friend at 2 a.m. after duct taping her mouth closed and stabbing her in the neck, covering her up, and running away. Then the plan changed to killing her in a bathroom at a nearby park the next morning, because there was a drain in the floor for the blood to vanish.
The next morning, the girls went to David’s Park; Geyser had a knife in her waistband. Weier claimed that she got wide-eyed when she saw the knife; she told police, “I thought, dear God, this was really happening.” In the park bathroom, Geyser handed Weier the knife, and Geyser tried to hold the victim, but then, according to Weier, Geyser had a “nervous breakdown,” and so Weier suggested that they play hide and seek, distract the victim, then murder her. Geyser played the “seeker,” and Weier and their friend hid. Weier told the friend to lie facedown, but the girl rebuffed her, so Weier sat on her, but the friend yelled she couldn’t breathe, so Weier let the girl back up.
According to Weier, Geyser gave her the knife, but Weier gave it back, whereupon Geyser told Weier, “I’m not going to until you tell me to.” Weier said she walked away but told Geyser, “Go ballistic, go crazy.” Geyser agreed, and Weier responded, “Now.” Geyser tackled the friend and began knifing her; the friend screamed, “I hate you. I trusted you.”
Weier said that when the friend managed to get to her feet and started stumbling away, Weier pulled her away from the street, afraid the victim would be seen, and the friend fell. Weier informed the victim that she should lie down; her blood would be lost more slowly that way. Weier told the victim that she and Geyser would get help, but she and Geyser were hoping the friend would die and then they could go see Slender Man and prove he existed, so they left.
On Saturday, the victim was found by a bicyclist and taken to a hospital. By Monday evening she was fighting for her life. Soon after that, Geyser and Weier were found by a sheriff’s deputy walking near I-94 in Waukesha.
Geyser’s tale to police essentially confirmed Weier’s, although she said Weier stabbed the victim first, saying, “Weier put the knife in my hand and then I continued to stab her,” adding, “It was weird that I didn’t feel remorse.”
Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said, “Most of the time in a crime like this, with such violence like this, there’s spur of the moment, there’s the heat of passion … It’s troubling when a person lashes out in anger. It’s more troubling when they lash out in cold blood. Isn’t that the worst kind of killer, the cold-blooded killer? It’s a very shocking incident. There’s no two ways about it.”
Schimel asserted that If the case is moved into juvenile court and the girls are convicted, they could be in jail until they are 25 years old. Geyser and Weier are each being held on $500,000 bail.
An administrator for the website Creepypasta said, “This wiki does not endorse or advocate for the killing, worship, and otherwise replication of rituals of fictional works… We are a literature site, not a crazy satanic cult.”