Wisconsin girl found mentally ill in Slender Man stabbing case

Associated Press
Saturday 16 September 2017 05.50 BST

A Wisconsin girl who admitted to participating in the stabbing of a classmate to please horror character Slender Man will avoid prison after a jury determined Friday that she was mentally ill at the time of the attack.

Prosecutors said Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured Payton Leutner into the woods at a Waukesha park in May 2014 and that Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times as Weier urged her on. Leutner managed to crawl out of the park and was found by a passing cyclist. She survived her wounds.

All three girls were 12 years old at the time.

Weier, now 15, pleaded guilty in August to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide but claimed she was mentally ill during the attack and was not responsible for her actions. The jury’s job was to decide whether she was.

The decision means Weier will be sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison. A plea agreement calls for her to spend at least three years at a hospital.

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