‘Slender Man’ stabbing: 13-year-old Wisconsin girls will be tried as adults

- Two 13-year-old girls charged with stabbing a classmate 19 times and leaving her for dead in the high-profile “Slender Man” case will be tried as adults, a Wisconsin judge ruled Monday.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren’s decision to keep the girls in the adult court system has major implications for Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, who are charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and could face sentences of up to 45 years each, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The Washington Post is naming the juvenile defendants since they will be tried as adults.

“This was an effort to kill someone, not a mistake by hitting someone too hard,” Bohren said, ABC affiliate WISN reported.

The horrific 2014 stabbing attracted national attention in part because of its connection to the Slender Man, a mythological creature and Internet meme born out of an obscure online forum in 2009. The girls told authorities that they hatched a plot to kill a friend during a birthday slumber party in May 2014to prove their loyalty to Slender Man; they also said Slender Man had threatened their families, according to the criminal complaint.

Geyser and Weier were 12 years old at the time of the alleged attack; a passerby found the victim bleeding in a wooded park, and the girl survived. Full Story