‘Slender Man’ stabbing suspect, 12, to have mental competency hearing

A judge ordered a competency hearing Wednesday for one of two Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing a friend 19 times in order to please the fictional online horror character known as “Slender Man” after doctors deemed her mentally incompetent to stand trial, the girl’s lawyer said.

The court Wednesday was given the results of two mental competency evaluations for 12-year-old Morgan Geyser -- one ordered by her attorney, Anthony Cotton, and the other ordered by the state. Both showed that that she was not fit to proceed, Cotton told the Los Angeles Times.

Geyser and Anissa Weier, also 12, were charged as adults at the beginning of June for attempted first-degree intentional homicide, the Waukesha County district attorney’s office said. The girls attended middle school with the victim.

According to the criminal complaint, Weier told police they were trying to prove that the Slender Man -- a fictitious Internet character whose stories they followed online -- was real. The idea allegedly was to kill their friend as Slender Man to prove his existence.

The three girls had a sleepover at one of the suspects’ homes, according to a statement released by Waukesha police after the incident. In the morning, on May 31, police said, Geyser and Weier lured their friend to a local park where one girl held the victim down while the other stabbed her repeatedly in the arm, legs and torso.

Despite being stabbed 19 times, the victim, also 12, was later able to crawl away and was discovered by a passing bicyclist, police said. She was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery for her injuries, which included injuries to major organs. She has since been released.

Slender Man is a monster meme created in 2009 by a user of the website Something Awful, according to the website whatculture.com. Through years of posts and back-stories, the character has become a modern-day myth about a faceless man.

Court proceedings are typically halted once a defendant is found incompetent to allow time for treatment. However, Cotton had filed a motion Monday asking the judge to allow pretrial proceedings in his client’s case to continue even if she is ultimately found incompetent.

Cotton said that his goal is to have the girl tried in juvenile court, instead of as an adult. The next stage in the trial proceedings, he said, will be a competency hearing on Aug. 1, where the state prosecution will cross-examine the doctors who conducted the competency evaluations.

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Times staff writer Ryan Parker contributed to this report.