Meme to murder: US teens stab friend to ‘please’ Slender Man

Two 12-year-old girls from Waukesha, Wisconsin in the United States are facing criminal charges and up to 64 years in jail. Their crime: the duo stabbed their friend 19 times and have blamed ‘Slender Man’ saying it was he who asked them to commit the crime.

According to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the two girls were charged in Waukesha County Circuit Court as adults with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and fact up to 65 years in prison.” The report adds that Morgan E Geyser and Anissa E Weier decided that they would try to kill their friend during a sleepover for her birthday. The victim is another 12-year-old who attends the same school as them.

According to the report, the girls told the police that the murder was “to pay homage to a fictional character who they believed was real after reading about him on a website devoted to horror stories.” The character is Slender Man. Geyser told the police, “It was weird that I didn’t feel remorse.”

The report adds, “Weier told police that Slender Man is the ‘leader’ of Creepypasta, and in the hierarchy of that world, one must kill to show dedication” and “to prove themselves worthy of him”.

So who is Slender Man? For starters he is not the leader of CreepyPasta. According to this piece on Vox, “Slender Man is a fictional urban legend or horror story that was first created on an internet forum in 2009. Slender Man (also spelled Slenderman or Slendy) actually started off as a photo manipulation, by a Something Awful forum user named Victor Surge. The creature known as Slender Man has no face, no hair, is very, very thin and wears a dark suit.”

KnowYourMeme says that “Slender Man (a.k.a Slenderman) is a mythical creature often depicted as a tall, thin figure wearing a black suit and a blank face. According to the legend, he can stretch or shorten his arms at will and has tentacle-like appendages protruding from his back.”

Slender man tales after often seen in the Creepypasta Wiki which is a website dedicated to horror stories. Creepy Pasta, a similar website has put out a statement claiming it is not responsible for the crimes. “Most people don’t watch Hannibal and turn into serial killers.”

Slender man link aside, the news reports indicate that the girls spent months planning the murder of their friend. Luckily the victim has survived and is in a stable condition. The victim was discovered by a bicyclist, lying on the sidewalk and covered in blood. She had managed to crawl out of the woods, where the suspects had led her to commit crime.

While debate will continue over what caused the girls to plan such a crime, the Slender Man meme has hit the spotlight for now.

#Slender Man