Hi folks,
My apologies for a long post, I hope it will be worth the read.
As a father of a girl around this age in particular, this event had a profound impact on me. A compelling need to know "why" led me to join this forum. My research is taken from the official criminal complaint and other public records.
Not much has been presented about the family life of AW. In particular, it appears that she was living alone with her father, who divorced her mother last year. Her older brother and sister are actually step-siblings from a previous marriage that ended in 1999, and as we have read, they were not living at the home until 2 days prior to the event. The divorce would have been in the same year that AW transitioned from elementary to middle school. We have no idea what her relationship with her father was like, but this could have left her very isolated and vulnerable, particularly at her age.
Regarding MG's family, much has been said about the gothic imagery that pervades the home and lifestyle. While I absolutely don't think that is a cause, I so wonder if it MG's parents realized that MG's interest in the macabre was NOT the same as theirs, a fun, tongue-in-cheek lifestyle thing. As a result, what to other parents may have been alarming may have been considered "a chip off the old block" to them. To be sure, I believe them to be loving devoted parents, with a daughter with a very unusual and unsuspected susceptibility they could not have guessed at.
According to school class lists, MG and PL attended the same elementary school, but AW was elsewhere. Although MG and AW lived fairly close by, its possible they didn't know each other until they started taking the bus for middle school. This means that their relationship only began at middle school, whereas the relationship between MG and PL was long-standing.
While there have been claims that there were "no red flags", I don't think that is true, in the case of MG at least. There is video of a classmate discussing the sledgehammer incident which has not been refuted, an alleged ongoing interest with suicide and later, Slender Man "he's coming to get us all". Other classmates described her as "odd" and "aloof". Of course, these incidents and behavior cannot be used to predict potential deadly violence, but with hindsight, they are concerning.
It isn't difficult to discover the identity of the victim - I'm not going to describe how. Suffice it to say that from the descriptions of others and her online presence, she comes across as a happy, normal and well-liked girl who enjoys the kind of things that girls of her age would be expected to enjoy, and is engaged with the community.
So we have AW, new to middle school, in a potentially isolated home situation and perhaps craving a best friend, MG, whose behavior has been noted to be increasingly odd (since 4th grade), and PL, who has none of these issues. The perfect storm comes when MG learns of CreepyPasta and Slender Man from AW, and it greatly accelerates an existing decline in the mental health of MG, and the grip on reality of AW. MG's parents see this as harmless, while it isn't clear if AW's parents are aware about the obsession. Her brother appears to be but did not guess what it would lead to.
Why target the best friend, PL? I absolutely agree with a poster above that PL very likely became extremely concerned about the change in her friend, and spoke to her about those concerns. This perceived attack on the fantasy world of MG (and by association Slender Man) led her to the belief that killing PL was necessary. A simpler answer may be that PL was the only one they could persuade to accompany them somewhere where she could be killed.
On the subject of PL, there were, according to the suspects' statements, several occasions when she could have run away as it had become obvious that the other two meant to harm her. The fact that she also yelled "I hate you! I trusted you!" suggests that she was had known about the attack, but had been told - perhaps - that it was some kind of joke designed to freak AW out.
The question is: where did the idea of killing come from? Was it a psychopathic response to a perceived attack from one considered a close friend (PL), or was there outside agency?
If you search for "slender man dream analysis", the results make extremely troubling reading. There are a large number of questions posted to various forums by kids who have had Slender Man dreams. Unfortunately, many of these forums have a requirement that answers are to be made as if Slender man and associated elements are true - this is a key tenet of the Slender man genre. The Slender Man is highly immersive and it is VERY difficult, even for an unsuspecting adult, to see that it is in effect an ongoing role-playing game, even in the forums where questions are asked and responded to in character.
It is totally believable that the responses could be taken literally. In some cases, responders have claimed to be Slender Man himself. And there is evidence from other forums (such as 4chan) that groups of individuals have actively been spoofing Slender Man forum posters for "fun".
It has been claimed that some elements of the girls' stories are not found anywhere within the Slender Man "mythos" (core stories). However, the Slender Man mansion (with children living in it), "killers" and "proxies" can be found in stories submitted to fanfiction.net. These stories are not part of the core Slender Man "mythos", and do contain suggestions about having to kill to prove one's worthiness. "Slender Sickness" also is referenced in many places.
Slender Man is strongly correlated to the forest (any forest) into which he lures children. The largest in Wisconsin is Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest to the north, which is where the girls said they were planning to go.
I think the key concern is that while yes, kids of that age should know right from wrong, they are dealing with highly immersive and *INTERACTIVE* media that never used to exist. Grimm's Fairy Tales didn't answer questions or give advice. And it only takes one sicko who wonders how far he could push a vulnerable user to create a disastrous outcome.
Comparing the statements of the two suspects, AW's is detailed, while MG's is very brief. They do not agree, and one wonders if MG truly recalls what happened. In some cases, it almost sounds like AW told her what had happened after the attack.
I may be totally wrong (and frequently am) but I don't think this event has a simple explanation, but is an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances involving a medium and genre that until recently, parents did not know existed. One way or another, those girls are going to be out of circulation for a long time. I do hope, however, that due diligence is done in determining the real causes and educating parents, teachers, politicians and law enforcers appropriately.
I also hope never to see an automatic appearance of children like that in an adult court which in addition to publicizing their names and faces across the world, has also thoughtlessly ruined the lives of their parents and families by providing their identities also.
Final thought: I've read reports from attorneys who say that "kid-on-kid" attacks like this are NOT uncommon. However, if they go through the juvenile court system from the get-go, they are never known about beyond the locality in which they occur.
