According to the court records (and some newspaper articles now) the attorneys of both defendants are asking for reports to be prepared as though the process was going through juvenile court. These reports are supposed to outline what the defendants would need in terms of education, healthcare and so on. The judge - against the wishes of the defense - agreed. This seems to be an incredibly important tactic from the defendants' POV because the information will be available before the "Reverse Waiver" hearings at which the judge could order that one or both cases be sent to Juvenile Court.
I hadn't thought about this case too much for a while, but with the release of some of the interrogation videos, I believe the following happened:
- MG had been starting to behave strangely since 4th Grade, presumably as a result of her now-diagnosed Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia. Until AW arrived on the scene (6th Grade), MG's only friend (by her own admission) was the victim herself.
- MG's behavior became markedly worse when she fell under the influence of AW, who introduced her to the Slender Man meme. She became "weirder and weirder and scarier and scarier" according to the victim who wanted to discontinue their friendship.
- There is clear evidence that the victim was already being bullied by the other two: AW admitted to hitting her (then apologizing when MG wasn't around) and I found evidence of online bullying by MG via the victim's social media account (this has since been closed). The victim's mother stated that MG had become more and more controlling.
- The victim seems to be a very trusting and unsophisticated person (I mean this in a positive way) who would put up with the weird behavior when others clearly would not. She was completely uninterested in the horror stuff, however, and this evidently caused discord between her and MG in which the victim felt she was responsible for reconciliation. I still feel that her rejection of Slender Man (and the effect of that on MG) played a key part in what followed
It's impossible to say whether MG would or would not have become dangerous due to her encroaching illness had AW not been around. The problem was that AW doesn't seem to have the same moral compass as others. She knows academically what's right and wrong, but I don't think she herself feels it. When asked what she thought about the victim having survived, she replied: "It makes you feel good she's alive", which sounds as though the question was "how are you supposed to feel if someone survives being stabbed?" which is the kind of response one might expect from a psychopath which (again IMO) she may well be.
AW was at least curious about the notion of being a psychopath as evidenced by several online "psychopath tests" which she took, posting the results on Google+. She claimed she had scored highly on these. Ironically, one of her remarks was "Cuff me officer..."
Assuming that it was MG that suggested the murder plot due to her psychosis, what happened next was crucial: instead of being appalled by the idea, AW thought it was "surprising but exciting". Her brother claimed she wasn't able to tell fantasy from reality. I wonder if this ALSO meant she was unable to tell pretend horror from real horror on an emotional response basis? In other words, killing the victim would be no worse in reality than in fantasy. I'm not convinced she thinks Slender Man is really real - while there are a few references to him on her Google + comments, there are many more for Ninja Turtles, Transformers and so on.
The first opportunity that AW had to (literally) stop the madness was when MG told her about her plan. But she didn't. Instead, the two plotted secretly which I can only imagine must have fueled MG's psychosis. I think AW needed MG as a "tool" to do the actual dirty work. She could have stopped the plot on many, many occasions but she didn't. Irrespective of the fact that she's "sorry now" (as she knows she's supposed to be), there has been no suggestion that she is mentally ill, and she is clearly intelligent.
If I was a betting person (which I'm not), I'd say that MG's case may wind up in juvenile court due to her illness, but AW is going to wind up locked away for a very long time, because she made a rational decision to do wrong when she clearly knows that it was wrong. In her case, I think Slender Man is far more likely to be an excuse now, and earlier a convenient tool to engineer a situation that held fascination for her: killing someone.
