Attorney: Girl Accused In Stabbing Belongs In Juvenile Court
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — One of two Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing a classmate to please the horror character Slender Man should face a lesser charge in juvenile court because she thought she was defending herself and her family from the creature, her attorney said Monday.
Each girl faces one count of being a party to first-degree intentional attempted homicide in adult court. Their cases have reached the preliminary hearing stage, where a judge decides whether enough evidence exists to order a trial.
Defense attorney Anthony Cotton began what's expected to be a two-day proceeding by declaring that the evidence will show his 12-year-old client should really face a second-degree attempted homicide charge in juvenile court. She believed she had to kill 12-year-old Peyton Leutner because she had brokered a deal with Slender Man that called for her and her co-defendant to kill someone. In exchange, Slender Man would make them his servants. If they didn't follow through, the creature — described as between 6 feet and 14 feet tall with tendrils sprouting from his back — would attack both girls and their families.
Cotton worked to show that the girl believed Slender Man was real, introducing multiple sketches of him from her notebook. The drawings were accompanied with phrases such as "never alone," ''safer dead" and "can't run."
Waukesha Police Detective Michelle Trussoni testified that the other girl had told police that Cotton's client told her about the deal and she felt she had to go along with the attack.
The other girl's attorney, Joseph Smith, Jr., tried to paint Cotton's client as the mastermind. He played video of his client's interrogation with police in which she said Cotton's client did the stabbing and his client was terrified that Slender Man would kill her and her family. In the video, the girl says she turned her back when the other girl began stabbing Leutner.
Smith's client was 12 at the time of the attack but has since turned 13.
Waukesha Police Detective Shelly Fisher testified that when she interviewed Leutner in the hospital, Leutner recounted how she had wanted to end her friendship with Cotton's client because the girl had become obsessed with Slender Man and was getting "scarier and scarier and weirder and weirder." Fisher said Leutner told her that the girl would send her emails telling her horror characters were going to kill her.
Smith's client sometimes hit her but would often apologize when Cotton's client wasn't around, Fisher said Leutner told her.
According to court documents, the girls had been planning to kill Leutner for months, discussing their scheme using code words. In May, they lured her to a Waukesha park, where she was stabbed 19 times.
The girls left Leutner bleeding in the woods, according to prosecutors. She crawled to a sidewalk, where a bicyclist found her and called 911. The alleged attackers were found walking toward the Nicolet National Forest, where they say they thought they would join Slender Man.
The Associated Press isn't naming the alleged attackers because their cases could end up in juvenile court, where proceedings are secret.
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