Fourteen-year-old Anissa Weier changed her plea Friday morning to not guilty by reason of mental disease – and Circuit Judge Michael Bohren ordered two doctors to examine her mental competency before she returns to court October 13th.
Advertisement
Two teenage girls charged with trying to sacrifice a 12-year-old classmate to please the mythical “Slender Man” have pleaded insanity. All three were 12 at the time.
An appeals court ruled in July that both girls would be tried as adults.
If the cases continue in adult court and defense attorneys and prosecutors agree the girls suffer from a mental disease, they would be committed to a mental hospital indefinitely, according to the second girl’s attorney, Maura McMahon.
Her insanity plea follows that of co-defendant Geyser’s last month.
14-year-old Anissa Weier from Waukesha, Wisconsin, originally pleaded not-guilty when she was facing first-degree attempted intentional homicide after attacking a classmate in May of 2014, ABC News reported Friday.
Her attorney, Maura McMahon, said after the hearing that she was no longer trying to get the case moved to juvenile court, a fight that had been ongoing since Weier and her friend, Morgan Geyser, were taken into custody.
Anyone 10 or older charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide is automatically considered an adult under state law.
The “Slender Man symbol” introduced by Marble Hornets.
According to court documents, the girls invited Leutner to a birthday sleepover in May 2014. Prosecutors allege the girl and Geyser lured Leutner into a wooded Waukesha park and stabbed her multiple times.
One child held Leutner to the ground while the other plunged the knife into her chest, arms and legs a total of 19 times, according to police.
The victim was found crawling out of the woods by a bicyclist.
Advertisement
The girls’ lawyers have worked to move them into juvenile court, where they could be incarcerated for three years and supervised until they turn 18. Weier and Geyser had planned the attack for months and claimed it was to “impress” Slender Man, a fictional internet character that lurks in the woods. They said they were walking to a national forest in northern Wisconsin where they planned to join Slender Man at his mansion.
