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Slender Man

RyoHazuki said:
By that reasoning, there are an awful lot of people with disordered thought processes. Even if you limit the criteria to belief in an entity that can be absolutely proven to have been invented by a specific person/s or group/s, that's still a worryingly large number. (I was going to mention Scientologists en masse, but I don't want to risk bringing deity-based religion into the thread)

I do agree that the girls need psych help rather than decades in prison, of course. Unfortunately, politics aside, after the amount of coverage the case has had, people will want someone to be punished in some way.
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There are many such people indeed, but the special circumstances in this case is that the girls are so young.

Its not just the media coverage in itself\; elected judges and DAs seek out such publicity to ensure their re-election and/or advancement to even higher political office.
 
The US regularly tries children as adults - though 12 is a wee bit younger than usual and they are girls; a 14 year old boy would certainly be tried as an adult in a case like this. I personally disagree with it in most cases, but it seems to be par for the course.

Another big - nay, huge - problem is that people who are found to be mentally unfit are frequently medicated until which time they are found mentally fit, then put on trial. It doesn't matter how bonkers they were when they committed the crime in question. To me this is rife with ethical problems, but again, par for the course. A person who is severely mentally ill is more likely to end up in prison instead of a psychiatric institution.

Part of the problem is that the US doesn't have a "guilty but insane" designation, like some other countries do. It's "not guilty by reason of insanity", and very few juries are willing to return that verdict, especially if the defendant (who's been on psychiatric medication for months by court order) doesn't seem insane at the moment.

In this case I wonder if it's not disordered thoughts as much as extreme immaturity. Applying adult law to children is bound to cause problems.
 
A judge denied a request Friday to move a 12-year-old girl accused of stabbing a classmate to please the horror character Slender Man to a psychiatric treatment center, but admitted her long-term placement needed to be considered.

The 12-year-old girl and her 13-year-old friend, both of Waukesha, are charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the attack on Payton Leutner, who survived 19 stab wounds. Waukesha is about 20 miles west of Milwaukee.

The 12-year-old's attorney, Anthony Cotton, said the defendant needs additional treatment for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. But the Waukesha County circuit judge was concerned about her being a flight risk.

Cotton said his client has no way to get anywhere and that any allegations of violence have been limited to the stabbing and are connected to her mental illness.

"She has no transport, no car, no friends, no money," he said.

"She's not any sort of flight risk." ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...be-moved-for-psychiatric-treatment/ar-AAbCdjM
 
Ermintrude said:
Whilst there are many other attributions/interpretations for the main symbol depicted upon the torso of this doll (including random meaninglessness) , I take it that the media and the world in general has no concern whatsoever that an X within a circle is the putative symbol for the "X Files" tv/movie franchise?

Is this entire 'trial' perhaps just a media construct, as forcedly-incorporeal and self-referring as the Slender story itself? A multilayered but intrinsically-circular project of the Blair Witch variety?
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That looks a bit like the symbol the Zodiac Killer included in all of the letters he sent to the SFPD and the SF Chronicle, just rotated 45 degrees. I think it's more likely that one of these girls was just a fan of his and tried to put her own spin on his infamous calling card. It's not uncommon for killers to obsess over other known killers, and Zodiac is pretty famous, and fascinating case.

320px-Zodiac-Schoolbus.jpg
 
Illuminaughty said:
That looks a bit like the symbol the Zodiac Killer included in all of the letters he sent to the SFPD and the SF Chronicle, just rotated 45 degrees
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Noting of course that this symbol, in the context of the last horrifying sentence in the letter, clearly represents the cross-hairs in a telescopic gun-sight on a target/hunting rifle.

Was this his standard weapon?

Illuminaughty said:
I think it's more likely that one of these girls was just a fan of his and tried to put her own spin on his infamous calling card. It's not uncommon for killers to obsess over other known killers, and Zodiac is pretty famous, and fascinating case.
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Surely not? At their age, they'd be watching 'Sesame Street' on tv, not 'The Streets of San Franciso' (or, to contemporise, 'ICarly' on IPad as opposed to 'Saw V' on IMAX).

I still think it's a media construct. Like so much 'news', it's just sugar for the masses.
 
Ermintrude said:
Noting of course that this symbol, in the context of the last horrifying sentence in the letter, clearly represents the cross-hairs in a telescopic gun-sight on a target/hunting rifle.

Was this his standard weapon?



Surely not? At their age, they'd be watching 'Sesame Street' on tv, not 'The Streets of San Franciso' (or, to contemporise, 'ICarly' on IPad as opposed to 'Saw V' on IMAX).

I still think it's a media construct. Like so much 'news', it's just sugar for the masses.
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Sadly not, 12 year olds today are not the 12 year olds we knew when we were 12.

I think you'd struggle to find many 12 year olds who'd happily sit and watch Sesame Street on TV rather than be glued to something else on an iPad / laptop / phone.
 
Ermintrude said:
Noting of course that this symbol, in the context of the last horrifying sentence in the letter, clearly represents the cross-hairs in a telescopic gun-sight on a target/hunting rifle.

Was this his standard weapon?
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He used a handgun point-blank for most of his killings. The symbol was how he signed his letters to the press and the police. There have been a couple of copy-cat cases where people used the symbol in the same manner, not sure if they also copied his killing style.

Ermintrude said:
Surely not? At their age, they'd be watching 'Sesame Street' on tv, not 'The Streets of San Franciso' (or, to contemporise, 'ICarly' on IPad as opposed to 'Saw V' on IMAX).
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Now I'm not sure if you're joking or not. I can't speak for everyone, but by 12 I knew all sorts of things about several of the more famous serial killers. I was not an anomaly among my peers.
 
Illuminaughty said:
Now I'm not sure if you're joking or not. I can't speak for everyone, but by 12 I knew all sorts of things about several of the more famous serial killers. I was not an anomaly among my peers.
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Same here!

Welcome to the FTMB
 
ramonmercado said:
Same here!

Welcome to the FTMB
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So presumably my naive perspective on this will be similar to the anticipated defense strategy of the legal team acting on behalf of these kids?

Without self-personalising this too much (or dragging the topic off-track) at that age, in the 1970s, I'll concede I probably had a wooly awareness of the Moors Murders, and perhaps more of an insight than my parents were aware of into the growing Troubles in Northern Ireland / Lord Lucan / South East Asia atrocities. And maybe a few more understandings of the Holocaust than I should've.

But this pales in to utter insignificance if we're saying kids of 9 / 10 / 11 are actually becoming homespun experts on serial killers, or any of the gory vocational aspects of murder. Do parents somehow feel that as long as they keep their kids relatively-insulated from porn and train them in social media common sense, everything (and I mean anything) else is just acceptable as free-range please-yourself liberal insanity??

I don't know anyone that is actually this bad at parenting in the real world, right now. I seriously question whether it genuinely is as badly widespread as it's being reported here.
 
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Ermintrude said:
So presumably my naive perspective on this will be similar to the anticipated defense strategy of the legal team acting on behalf of these kids?

Without self-personalising this too much (or dragging the topic off-track) at that age, in the 1970s, I'll concede I probably had a wooly awareness of the Moors Murders, and perhaps more of an insight than my parents were aware of into the growing Troubles in Northern Ireland / Lord Lucan / South East Asia atrocities. And maybe a few more understandings of the Holocaust than I should've.

But this pales in to utter insignificance if we're saying kids of 9 / 10 / 11 are actually becoming homespun experts on serial killers, or any of the gory vocational aspects of murder. Do parents somehow feel that as long as they keep their kids relatively-insulated from porn and train them in social media common sense, everything (and I mean anything) else is just acceptable as free-range please-yourself liberal insanity??

I don't know anyone that is actually this bad at parenting in the real world, right now. I seriously question whether it genuinely is as badly widespread as it's being reported here.
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Years back, before the internet, kids got information from books, TV , cinema. It wasn't that difficult to be au fait with the more gory details of serial killers.

There will always be something to blame: telegraphs, telephones, radio, talkies, TV, pulp magazines, paperbacks, jazz music, rock, punk etc etc etc.

There will always be room for a new moral panic.

Those kids who carried out the attack are deeply disturbed, I doubt if it has very much to do with social media.
 
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Ermintrude said:
So presumably my naive perspective on this will be similar to the anticipated defense strategy of the legal team acting on behalf of these kids?

Without self-personalising this too much (or dragging the topic off-track) at that age, in the 1970s, I'll concede I probably had a wooly awareness of the Moors Murders, and perhaps more of an insight than my parents were aware of into the growing Troubles in Northern Ireland / Lord Lucan / South East Asia atrocities. And maybe a few more understandings of the Holocaust than I should've.

But this pales in to utter insignificance if we're saying kids of 9 / 10 / 11 are actually becoming homespun experts on serial killers, or any of the gory vocational aspects of murder. Do parents somehow feel that as long as the keep their kids relatively-insulated from porn and train them in social media common sense, everything (and I mean anything) else is just free-range please-yourself liberal insanity??

I don't know anyone that is actually this bad at parenting in the real world, right now. I seriously question whether it genuinely is as badly widespread as it's being reported here.
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I had a similar range of awareness, mainly gleaned from the newspapers (we were a three a day family; The Mirror, The Mail and The Evening News during the week and The People, News of the World and Sunday Mirror on Sundays).
As an example, I can remember, aged about nine, devouring every word about the Manson Family trial as well as other less sensational accounts of what people are capable of. I would say broadsheets and red tops, as carriers of information, were the precursors of the internet in terms of what was available to the general public and reporting was often a lot more graphic than it is today.

None of this influenced me in real life. My parents taught me the difference between right and wrong and I simply would not have attacked anyone.
 
If you think about it though, if you want fame youve got to place the blame. So invent a new lurking horror, some dire evil that web users will go crazy over. Then when your life goes t*ts up due to your own mistakes simply blame the new boogy man. Media coverage and cash are just around the corner.
 
I'm surprised there isn't an attempt to bring The Green Man into that last one....
 
Two 13-year-old girls accused of stabbing a classmate to please the online horror character Slender Man have pleaded not guilty in court.

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier have been charged with attempted murder over the attack.

Last week, a Wisconsin judge decided that they should be tried as adults, meaning they could face decades in jail if convicted.

The victim, 12 at the time, was stabbed 19 times but survived.

She was found by a cyclist crawling from the woods where she was attacked with stab wounds to her arms, legs and torso, after the attack in May 2014.

A judge entered not guilty pleas on behalf of both girls at a hearing on Friday.

Investigators say the two girls had been plotting for months to kill their victim in "dedication" to Slender Man, a fictional horror website character.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34020267
 
Is that actually real? Weird.
 
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