GUILTY WI - 12-Year-Old Girls Stab Friend 19 Times for Slenderman, Waukesha, 31 May 2014 #1

[Mrs G Norris]

I'll give a hypothetical. What if two people are in a relationship, person A suspects that person B is having an affair, they then put that suspicion out there and are given a lot of manufactured data to support it (by other parties wanting to have a little fun with them and stir the pot), they also start seeing 'proof' of the affair for themselves as they become increasingly paranoid. Person A then harms person B. Was the first person already hostile and paranoid and likely to harm their lover anyway, or would they have gone on normally if the third parties never got involved.

 

[Ausgirl]

Here's an example of internet trolling at its finest:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...treamed-suicide-attempt-200-people-watch.html

Mentally ill boy is suicidal, he plans his death as a spectacle -- and 200 people from 4chan log in to encourage and watch him as he sets his room on fire.

They're not all like that, it's a highly diverse place, but the trolling gets downright cruel and there's an element of sheer sociopathy that's encouraged in some corners of it.

Interesting thoughts, Mrs. G.

 

[blue22]

I'll give a hypothetical. What if two people are in a relationship, person A suspects that person B is having an affair, they then put that suspicion out there and are given a lot of manufactured data to support it (by other parties wanting to have a little fun with them and stir the pot), they also start seeing 'proof' of the affair for themselves as they become increasingly paranoid. Person A then harms person B. Was the first person already hostile and paranoid and likely to harm their lover anyway, or would they have gone on normally if the third parties never got involved.

Just my antecedent evidence and personal experience in life talking here. A person who allows someone to convince of something like that...typically is always looking for proof. Always possessive, always jealous, always paranoid. I DO think people like that end up hurting other people in various ways.

With all that said, she is 12. She is not a tiny child. She knows right from wrong. She knows you don't premeditate murder, because someone online is saying things.

And, I think a suicidal boy is VASTLY different than 2 girls who premeditate a murder for months. This was not a crime of passion. (Which crimes involving trolling typically are.)

 

[Ausgirl]

For those interested:

The Slenderman mythos began as an entry to a competition on the website 'SomethingAwful", where images were doctored to show a tall, slender creature abducting children. The idea of "Slenderman" quickly became a meme.

This was expanded by a group called MarbleHornets, who made a series of realistic style videos (think Blair Witch in parts) video blogs (vlogs) and text blogs which told a fictional story about Slenderman but presented it something real. This took off and expanded into several 'branches' of the story, which are all unique but linked. Participation grew, and these various 'branches' of the story were termed ARG's (alternate reality games) and ARE's (alternate reality experiences) - More info on those.

It could be compared to the Lovecraft Mythos that way, for those who know about that. (and for some reason I feel moved to comment on how many people think the 'Necromonicon' is a real book..)

The various groups prefer to keep their storylines quite separate, mixing of them is generally frowned on.

One of these spin-off groups is called TribeTwelve, and it's this group I believe these two girls were involved with.

- TribeTwelve is the storyline group (ARG) which introduced the idea of 'proxies', human beings through which Slenderman (he is not called that in this storyline, but it's him) causes harm to people.

- MG's classmate (of the dubious sledgehammer) mentioned MG being in "Slenderman's tribe". As no other segment of the Slendy community uses the word 'tribe', and as 'tribe' is a strange word to use, I'm taking this as another clue that MG was involved with the TribeTwelve group.



"TribeTwelve is thirdly responsible for shaping the mythos of Slender Man, and chiefly responsible for shaping the modern mythos of proxies and The Collective, of which it uses the most of any series. TribeTwelve depicts the escapades of Noah Maxwell, a college-age resident of a well-to-do Florida community, as he is ruthlessly hounded and stalked by Slender Man and by an extremely cruel and sadistic proxy/collective Member known as the Observer. "

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/TribeTwelve

http://slendernation.forumotion.com/f6-tribe-twelve

http://www.youtube.com/user/tribetwelve

 

[inthedark14]

For those interested:

The Slenderman mythos began as an entry to a competition on the website 'SomethingAwful", where images were doctored to show a tall, slender creature abducting children. The idea of "Slenderman" quickly became a meme.

This was expanded by a group called MarbleHornets, who made a series of realistic style videos (think Blair Witch in parts) video blogs (vlogs) and text blogs which told a fictional story about Slenderman but presented it something real. This took off and expanded into several 'branches' of the story, which are all unique but linked. Participation grew, and these various 'branches' of the story were termed ARG's (alternate reality games) and ARE's (alternate reality experiences) - More info on those.

It could be compared to the Lovecraft Mythos that way, for those who know about that.

The various groups prefer to keep their storylines quite separate, mixing of them is generally frowned on.

One of these spin-off groups is called TribeTwelve, and it's this group I believe these two girls were involved with.

- TribeTwelve is the storyline group (ARG) which introduced the idea of 'proxies', human beings through which Slenderman (he is not called that in this storyline, but it's him) causes harm to people.

- MG's classmate (of the dubious sledgehammer) mentioned MG being in "Slenderman's tribe". As no other segment of the Slendy community uses the word 'tribe', and as 'tribe' is a strange word to use, I'm taking this as another clue that MG was involved with the TribeTwelve group.



"TribeTwelve is thirdly responsible for shaping the mythos of Slender Man, and chiefly responsible for shaping the modern mythos of proxies and The Collective, of which it uses the most of any series. TribeTwelve depicts the escapades of Noah Maxwell, a college-age resident of a well-to-do Florida community, as he is ruthlessly hounded and stalked by Slender Man and by an extremely cruel and sadistic proxy/collective Member known as the Observer. "

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/TribeTwelve

http://slendernation.forumotion.com/f6-tribe-twelve

The button is not enough to thank you Ausgirl. Seriously I tried to read these various sites and my brain melted a little.

You so ROCK.

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[Nasteria]

Is the Daily Mail considered msn? Truthful inquiry, thanks.

 

[Nasteria]

My heart is crushing all around. There are no winners in this case. As a parent of an almost 12 year old, I can't begin to imagine. So many dreams lost. A whole life time of dreams lost..............

and the victim. I pray she has support, more support than we can imagine. I pray her emotional wounds are not worse than her physical wounds.

Fantasy, creative imagination is usually great..... but of the ways to express it. Heartbreaking.

I feel the pain you feel about these kids. How are we as adults suppose to wrap our brains around this crime? I don't know how to. I feel horrible sadness.

 

[Ausgirl]

The button is not enough to thank you Ausgirl. Seriously I tried to read these various sites and my brain melted a little.

You so ROCK.

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Oh hey, no worries. As a horror writer, I've had interest in this particular form of multi-media, multi-user story-telling so I'd already done a bit of reading a couple years back.

Here's an Aussie contribution, which is actually quite 'professional':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO4pYtfhVqY

Some of the Slenderman material is hyper-realistic. I can see how it might have a profound impact on the mind of a 12 yo., particularly one who's troubled anyway. Some of the storylines give me the creeping heebies, and I'm a jaded, middle aged adult with a lifelong and vast interest in the horror genre.

That said, all that's been posted regarding the fact the 'everyone' knows it's fiction is very much accurate.

 

[inthedark14]

Oh hey, no worries. As a horror writer, I've had interest in this particular form of multi-media, multi-user story-telling so I'd already done a bit of reading a couple years back.

Here's an Aussie contribution, which is actually quite 'professional':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO4pYtfhVqY

Some of the Slenderman material is hyper-realistic. I can see how it might have a profound impact on the mind of a 12 yo., particularly one who's troubled anyway. Some of the storylines give me the creeping heebies, and I'm a jaded, middle aged adult with a lifelong and vast interest in the horror genre.

That said, all that's been posted regarding the fact the 'everyone' knows it's fiction is very much accurate.

I just found myself caught up in the comments and annoyed by the trolls. You were so not kidding about that. The stories (for me) for the most part were silly scary and fun. Like those I posted about several pages ago. I don't go mind melt over the stories, it was trying to find some sense in the comments...trying to see what these girls were maybe reading.

There are trolls everywhere. Some are way scarier than others.

Thank you again, I didn't know you wrote horror. I wonder if I've read your work. Please let me know about it.

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[Ausgirl]

And, I think a suicidal boy is VASTLY different than 2 girls who premeditate a murder for months. This was not a crime of passion. (Which crimes involving trolling typically are.)

I wasn't at all comparing the two cases, beyond giving an example of how extreme trolling can be on a particular site. I had thought the context of my posts made that pretty clear. Oh well.

Where is it said these are 'usually crimes of passion'?

Anyway. Here's some evidence of 4chan members planning some heinous trolling of the family of the victim. The 4chan post has been removed:

[ame="http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=10058012&postcount=83"]JREF Forum - View Single Post - [Merged] Slender Man Must Be Stopped!!! / Pre-teens attempt to kill classmate[/ame]


Idiots willing to go that far to amuse their sick senses of humour are more than capable of messing with the heads of impressionable little girls. Perhaps quite badly.

I am not espousing a hard and fast theory here (in case I am misunderstood) but just again making a clear point that some members of this net culture promote and delight in harmful trolling. Thus it's not *impossible* and actually not at all *unlikely* that MG and AW were exposed to people like that at some point.

 

[blue22]

I wasn't at all comparing the two cases, beyond giving an example of how extreme trolling can be on a particular site. I had thought the context of my posts made that pretty clear. Oh well.

Where is it said these are 'usually crimes of passion'?

Anyway. Here's some evidence of 4chan members planning some heinous trolling of the family of the victim. The 4chan post has been removed:

JREF Forum - View Single Post - [Merged] Slender Man Must Be Stopped!!! / Pre-teens attempt to kill classmate


Idiots willing to go that far to amuse their sick senses of humour are more than capable of messing with the heads of impressionable little girls. Perhaps quite badly.

I am not espousing a hard and fast theory here (in case I am misunderstood) but just again making a clear point that some members of this net culture promote and delight in harmful trolling. Thus it's not *impossible* and actually not at all *unlikely* that MG and AW were exposed to people like that at some point.

I was speaking of things like that boy did. That was a really impassioned, immediate reaction to the trolling.

I will not absolve guilt for premeditated murder, just because nuts on the internet are trolling. I do not believe that even happened here. I know you said you weren't claiming that this is what happened, I'm just saying it does not appear so. They use such vague terminology when then were saying they had to prove doubters wrong. In a very long confession, they didn't mention one word about a specific person. I think "doubters" are everyone, because the whole community knows this is not real. I don't buy it.

 

[Nymeria]

Is the Daily Mail considered msn? Truthful inquiry, thanks.

It must be, because I see it linked here often (and on all kinds of threads).
To me though, it is on the tabloid train. JMO.

ETA- I should say they publish articles with truth, but they AMP up the scandalous nature of them all.
Example- Elliot Roger, they went and hunted down that teen girl he knew and hated as a kid, and published her bikini pic.
Example 2- *SCREAMING SALACIOUS HEADLINES!!!!!!!!!!!*

 

[MyBelle]

This program only covers a certain portion of children:

"CARES serves Illinois youths who are under 18 if they are not covered
by private health insurance,are eligible for public funding,or if their
private insurance coverage is exhausted or does not include mental
health treatment.CARES and SASS also serve youths under 21 if they
are enrolled in the All Kids health care program and/or if they have
Medicaid coverage. Families with private health insurance coverage can
get emergency help through community mental health providers." P. 11

And it continues to recommend calling LE:

"Call 911 if a situation is out of control and you fear that your child or
someone else could get hurt. However, when police come you may
lose control of what happens.Tell the police dispatcher that your child
has a mental illness, and ask the dispatcher to send a social worker or
police officer with Crisis InterventionTraining (CIT).CIT officers have
special training to handle mental health crises." P. 11

So while I applaud this program and the state's proactive approach, the program does not take LE out of the equation in some situations and calling 911 will not necessarily result in a referral to CARES.

Salem



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I agree but it would apply to this case because the girls--according to their family, classmates, teachers--didn't act out of control or violent.

I agree police will get involved if there is an imminent threat of violence and said that in my previous post.

 

[Ausgirl]

I will not absolve guilt for premeditated murder, just because nuts on the internet are trolling.

Who on earth is suggesting you do that?

 

[MyBelle]

I was speaking of things like that boy did. That was a really impassioned, immediate reaction to the trolling.

I will not absolve guilt for premeditated murder, just because nuts on the internet are trolling. I do not believe that even happened here. I know you said you weren't claiming that this is what happened, I'm just saying it does not appear so. They use such vague terminology when then were saying they had to prove doubters wrong. In a very long confession, they didn't mention one word about a specific person. I think "doubters" are everyone, because the whole community knows this is not real. I don't buy it.

Haven't some kids around this age committed suicide due to trolls on the Internet targeting them?

I think these two girls are deeply mentally disturbed and the public is trying to understand how it reached such a catastrophic climax. Only a professional can begin to delve and try to make sense of all of this.

The aspect of them engaging in fantasy at their age isn't as troubling to me as the fact that they seemed to idolize the villain rather than want to slay the villian and thus be "heroes." They were wanting to kill someone who cared about them even though their victim had done nothing to them. She wasn't a bully, wasn't someone they had to even be friends with. I can't imagine how emotionally traumatized she must be. If somebody was egging these girls on to do this, investigators need to find that out.

JMO

 

[Ausgirl]

Here's a forensic psych who doesn't believe the Slendy story:


On Wednesday, forensic psychologist Brian Russell appeared on the network to discuss the strange case of the two 12-year-old girls who stabbed their friend nearly to death and then blamed an internet meme called "Slender Man" for it. Russell was there to sound a note of caution, it seems, arguing that there is no need to have some kind of mass panic over paranormal horror stories on the internet, because the girls probably had individualized motivations and were just using their enthusiasm for Slender Man as an excuse. Here is what he said:

"I think this is much more probably about immature [sic], hatred, jealousy, narcissism, and probably coupled with insufficient parenting—probably what we have here are a couple morally underdeveloped, hateful, jealous, little minds with insufficient supervision and parenting. It’s probably a more run-of-the-mill attempted murder really."


http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...ys_girls_are_more_likely_to_have_hateful.html

 

[Ausgirl]

Girls in general don't take on that role, and never have in the history of time. Very few girls see themselves as the protector of the population against crime.

Wonderwoman.

Just sayin'. =p

When you get around to that discussion some time, do please let me know. It's an interesting topic.

 

[Nasteria]

It must be, because I see it linked here often (and on all kinds of threads).
To me though, it is on the tabloid train. JMO.

ETA- I should say they publish articles with truth, but they AMP up the scandalous nature of them all.
Example- Elliot Roger, they went and hunted down that teen girl he knew and hated as a kid, and published her bikini pic.
Example 2- *SCREAMING SALACIOUS HEADLINES!!!!!!!!!!!*

I wasn't sure if it was enquirer-ish or a solid source of information. thx

 

[mrsobrien]

I find it very hard to buy that they actually believe the slender man bit. I remember being a conniving and mischievous (albeit not murderous) preteen to well... It's common knowledge that you can blame any arbitrary influence for one's behavior at that age. Other kids, rock and roll, wrestling, movies, whatever. The trick is to play stupid, blame a media phenomenon, stick to your story. That's what I believe in this case, this was the plan.

 

[Gardenlady]

You must be kidding. Girls have been taking on that role for quite some time. Rosie the Riverter was just spotlighted for WWII. Can't get more a protector of the population than that. Wonder Woman, Brenda Starr, Katniss Everdeen or however you spell it.



To say girls perceive themselves to be weak is an incredibly sexist comment.



JMO

Excellent post.

And not to mention that if, in the past, fewer girls and women aspired to be the hero, they were conditioned to believe they couldn't by society and it's expected, rigid gender roles.


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