Morgan Geyser, who stabbed one of her friends when she was 12 as a sacrifice to the fictional “Slender Man,” is seeking an appeal to discharge her conviction, according to the Journal Sentinal.
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Both Geyser and Anissa Weier were tried as adults for their crimes and both were found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Geyser was later diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia.
The pair were tried with attempted second-degree intentional homicide, with Geyser’s appeal claiming that this charge should have brought the two to juvenile court instead of being tried as adults. The appeal also claims that Geyser’s age and mental issues prevented her from fully understanding her rights when she gave a videotaped confession to a detective about the incident.
The Slender Man was created in 2009 as part of a Photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums. Users were challenged to create an image that looked supernatural, resulting in Eric Knudsen inserting the image of a tall, faceless man in a suit lurking in the background of photos depicting groups of children. The eerie visual immediately sparked the interest of other users, inspiring them to concoct similar edits of this “Slender Man.”
The mythologies of Slender Man helped birth the creepypasta movement on the internet, which were urban legends that users would copy and paste across all corners of the web that were passed off as real occurrences. The figure was linked to a number of supernatural events and disappearances of children, with each story offering slight deviations that spread the legend even further.
Both Geyser and Weier read the many stories regarding Slender Man and believed them to be fact and not fiction. This led them to lure a friend at a slumber party to a bathroom at a nearby park where they proceeded to stab the girl, thinking that this sacrifice to Slender Man would protect both them and their families. Luckily, the victim survived the encounter.
The legends surrounding Slender Man inspired a film named after the figure last year, which saw multiple delays in its release. Following the debut of the film’s first trailer, the father of one of the attackers shared a statement about the film.
“It’s absurd they want to make a movie like this,” Bill Weier said during a press telephone interview. “It’s popularizing a tragedy is what it’s doing. I’m not surprised but in my opinion it’s extremely distasteful. All we’re doing is extending the pain all three of these families have gone through.”
While the film wasn’t based on the real-world event, many viewers thought it was cashing in on the craze inspired by the violent crime.
Stay tuned for details on the future of Slender Man.
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