View Full Version : WTH is wrong with kids



kelroy55
06-03-2014, 11:28 AM
Would being on a website really make kids do something like this or are they already unbalanced? What to do with them? I admit I'm both in disbelief and baffled.

(CNN) -- They had something to prove to someone they found on a ghoulish website. So, two girls allegedly lured a third girl into a wooded area in Waukesha, Wisconsin, over the weekend and stabbed her 19 times, police said.

The suspects allegedly left the victim to crawl to her own rescue. The three girls, all 12 years old, were friends, according to a criminal complaint.

A bicyclist found the wounded girl alive Saturday, lying on a sidewalk in Waukesha, Police Chief Russell Jack said. She was in stable condition at a hospital on Monday.

The girls were trying to impress a certain "Slenderman," the complaint read. One of the girls encountered the name on a website known as Creepypasta Wiki, which posts horror stories.

Supects inspired by Internet

Slenderman is the site's supposed leader, and to climb up into his realm, a user must kill someone, one of the suspects told police.

The fictional Slenderman character is an Internet meme that often appears in horror stories, videos and images.

On Tuesday morning, a lengthy statement was posted on CREEPYPASTA.COM - Scary Paranormal Stories & Short Horror Microfiction ? (http://www.creepypasta.com).

The statement expressed condolences for everyone involved, and stressed that the site does not condone or encourage violence in any way but also noted that "it's hard to justify pinning blame on an entire genre of writing."

Allegedly planned

The two were arrested hours after the victim was discovered Saturday, and they were being held on preliminary charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

The complaint identified the girls as Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier.

They are being charged as adults and appeared in court Monday. Bail was set for each in the amount of $500,000, Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said.

Anthony Cotton, Geyser's attorney, told CNN on Tuesday that he's spoken briefly with her.

She is housed at a juvenile facility for females, he said, and the girl's family is in "shock."

Geyser has not had a mental evaluation yet, but her lawyer expects her to be given one soon.

Attempts to contact an attorney for Weier were unsuccessful Monday and Tuesday.

The suspects attended the same middle school as the victim and had a sleepover at the home of one of the suspects Friday night, Jack said.

"Both suspects had a fascination with a fictitious character that often posted" to websites dealing with stories about death and horror, the police chief told reporters at a news conference.

According to the criminal complaint, the suspects had been planning the attack since February.

They first thought to kill the victim by placing duct tape over her mouth while she was sleeping and stabbing her in the neck, the complaint read.

Next, the plan was to kill her in a bathroom where there was floor drain that could make cleanup easier, it continued.

But, finally, the girls decided to do it in a park while playing a game of hide-and-seek, the complaint read.

It states: "As they left for the park ... (the victim) was walking in front of them and Geyser lifted up the left side of her white jacket and displayed the knife tucked in her waistband. Weier stated she gave Geyser a look with wide eyes and, when asked what that meant Weier stated, 'I thought, dear god, this was really happening.' "

'One millimeter away' from death

Some of the victim's major organs were struck.

One of the stab wounds was near her heart, and she was "one millimeter away from certain death," the complaint read.

According to the complaint, the victim told the bicyclist who found her: "Please help me. I've been stabbed." She was in extreme pain and could only answer questions with yes or no.

Authorities searched for the two other girls, and a sheriff's officer found them walking near Interstate 94, Jack said.

He declined to say whether the suspects had blood on their clothes, but added: "There was evidence that was readily apparent when the two were taken into custody."

That evidence included a large kitchen knife inside a purse that Geyser identified as one of her mother's old purses, according to the complaint.

Both girls spoke readily with police, the complaint said.

12-year-old Wisconsin girl stabbed 19 times; friends arrested - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/justice/wisconsin-girl-stabbed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

FritterGirl
06-03-2014, 03:19 PM
I have no more insight into this situation than any other person who is not personally involved. Obviously, it is deeply troubling and a horrific situation. It certainly makes you wonder exactly what prompted the two to act in such a way.

In looking into the "Creepypasta" website (I had visited it years ago out of curiosity when digging up some info on ghost stories), I came across the post the site administrator wrote. It is one of the most honest and forthright posts about fans, fandoms, and cultural responsibility I've ever read. Worth the read, even if it is a bit long, and certainly explains the role of these kinds of things in our society. It's easy for us to want to point the finger at what can be perceived by many to be a "negative" influence, but by the same token, this is one terrible example out of thousands if not tens of thousands of fans of dark literary/comic/film genres, and it is extremely rare that any cross the line.

http://www.creepypasta.com/

hoya
06-03-2014, 03:26 PM
This has been going on for a long time.

Charles Starkweather - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather)
Caril Ann Fugate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caril_Ann_Fugate)

Plutonic Panda
06-03-2014, 03:31 PM
The owner of that website needs to be charged with conspiracy or something like that.

As for a twelve year old being charged as an adult, I don't know what to say

FritterGirl
06-03-2014, 03:42 PM
The owner of that website needs to be charged with conspiracy or something like that.

As for a twelve year old being charged as an adult, I don't know what to say

Under what premise? How about suing the parents for not monitoring their child's internet use? He wasn't promoting nor advocating for crime, simply posting works of fiction that others' had written. There are countless sites similar to his out there. Do you propose they all be shut down?

PennyQuilts
06-03-2014, 04:30 PM
I don't even know how parents - even diligent parents - manage, these days. Kids have so many ways to access the internet unsupervised. My kids are in their thirties but when they were raised, cell phones weren't around and they didn't even have privacy to talk with their friends by phone - common at the time to have a kid on the kitchen phone talking to friends within the hearing of the rest of the family. Many a time I heard one of my kids start saying something gossipy about a classmate and that was a guarantee that the phone call got ended. It was just tons easier to steer kids away from bad influences and keep them from turning into little bullies. It is so much harder, these days. Kids could always get into trouble - not saying that - but in comparison to not that long ago, raising kids has turned into a cultural/intellectual/ethical blender. If I ran the universe, no kid under age 16 would have a cell phone or other mobile device with internet access and computers would be restricted to common areas. Can't do that now without your kid feeling like a martyr and treated by their peers like a freak.

Plutonic Panda
06-03-2014, 04:30 PM
Under what premise? How about suing the parents for not monitoring their child's internet use? He wasn't promoting nor advocating for crime, simply posting works of fiction that others' had written. There are countless sites similar to his out there. Do you propose they all be shut down?oh I don't know.... Manipulating children to kill people? Any website that manipulates people to kill others should be shut down.

Not monitoring Internet usage... Do you even realize how easy it is to the Internet these days? You could get a lap and rive slowly though a neighborhood and if someone's Internet that isn't guarded with a password

FritterGirl
06-03-2014, 04:46 PM
oh I don't know.... Manipulating children to kill people? Any website that manipulates people to kill others should be shut down.

Not monitoring Internet usage... Do you even realize how easy it is to the Internet these days? You could get a lap and rive slowly though a neighborhood and if someone's Internet that isn't guarded with a password

Manipulating people to kill others? It's a FICTION site, where writers submit works of FICTION in the genres of paranormal/creep/horror, etc. to get reader reviews. The site admins were not promulgating a message to kill this other child. Nor were they encouraging behavior. The girls were inspired by works of FICTION. Period. This is not like the girls finding someone on a chat site and that person encouraging them specifically to engage in untoward or illegal behavior. They did this as a "copycat," or a "tribute" to the CHARACTER - again FICTIONAL - named "Slenderman," who happens to be a horror / internet meme. To me, this speaks more to the instability of the girls and their need for positive attention than anything else.

Sites like this (and even like OKC Talk, as well as social media sites) are legally protected from content posted by other people. There may be some vagueries here in that the Creepypasta site did, in fact, agree to post the STORIES about Slenderman, but they were not the originators of the content. The content was there for the taking.

Saying that they are responsible for this is like saying all Steven King books should be pulled in the event someone copy cats a murder after an act in his book, or that any serial killer inspired by Thomas Harris should have his own publishing rights revoked, and those books pulled from all libraries, books stores, etc. Good luck!

What Is Slenderman Slender Man Creepypasta Copypasta Murders Wisconsin - TIME (http://time.com/2818192/creepypasta-copypasta-slender-man/)
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2014/0603/Un-masking-Slenderman-Talking-to-your-children-about-the-Wisconsin-stabbing
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man

Edmond_Outsider
06-03-2014, 06:26 PM
You should've seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe, as the song says.

There's almost always a better explanation than popular culture for these sorts of things.

I'll revise that, always a better explanation.

Edmond_Outsider
06-03-2014, 06:36 PM
Lets see if I can name a few of the pop culture folks blamed for anti-social behaivor...

Velma Banky
Rudolph Valentino
Theda Bera
Edward G. Robinson
Orson Wells
Frank Sinatra
Bill Haley
Elvis Presley
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Alice Cooper
Kiss
AC/DC
Ozzy Osbourne
Judas Priest
Nirvana
NIN
Rammstein
Marilyn Manson
VEGAN BLACK METAL CHEF!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evt9dCQ-saM

RadicalModerate
06-03-2014, 07:33 PM
You left out Walter Simcheck (or whatever his last Polack name was in the Second Best Movie Ever Made).

8BdT5mFAk-Y

I guess the difference is, if you were born before '63 you are able to discern "comedy" from "black comedy" from "total bull****."

jn1780
06-03-2014, 07:46 PM
If you ask me, you have bigger problems than not monitoring internet usage if you kid is going to repeatedly stab another kid. Your kid doesn't know the very basics of right and wrong at that point.

RadicalModerate
06-03-2014, 08:28 PM
If you ask me, you have bigger problems than not monitoring internet usage if you kid is going to repeatedly stab another kid. Your kid doesn't know the very basics of right and wrong at that point.

Too much Virtual Reality?
Not enough Virtuous Spanking?
Idiot Helicopter Moms and Career-Centered Dads?
To Balance the Daily Requirements to Maintain the LifeStyle?

Stew
06-03-2014, 08:48 PM
And in the news today...

Gospel music drives North Carolina woman to ax stepfather in the head (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/03/gospel-music-drives-north-carolina-woman-ax-stepfather-in-the-head/)

PennyQuilts
06-03-2014, 08:53 PM
If you ask me, you have bigger problems than not monitoring internet usage if you kid is going to repeatedly stab another kid. Your kid doesn't know the very basics of right and wrong at that point.

Of course you have a bigger problem than monitoring. Not saying that. I'm just saying she wouldn't have been on that website getting ideas to begin with pre internet. :). My point is that we didn't even have to worry about that sort of thing but parents, today, have all kinds of crap being thrown at their kids. It is just a hard time to raise kids, all around.

PennyQuilts
06-03-2014, 08:56 PM
And in the news today...

Gospel music drives North Carolina woman to ax stepfather in the head (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/03/gospel-music-drives-north-carolina-woman-ax-stepfather-in-the-head/)
Words fail me. Honestly, the serenity of the victim frightens me as much as anything else in the story. Panic can be ugly, admittedly, but it just seems like he should have been a bit more freaked out.

kelroy55
06-04-2014, 09:23 AM
And in the news today...

Gospel music drives North Carolina woman to ax stepfather in the head (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/03/gospel-music-drives-north-carolina-woman-ax-stepfather-in-the-head/)

Have you ever listened to Gospel music? j/k Glad he's OK

kelroy55
06-04-2014, 09:32 AM
oh I don't know.... Manipulating children to kill people? Any website that manipulates people to kill others should be shut down.

Not monitoring Internet usage... Do you even realize how easy it is to the Internet these days? You could get a lap and rive slowly though a neighborhood and if someone's Internet that isn't guarded with a password


How were the girls manipulated? Did any of the others who went to that site try to kill somebody?

The girls obviously need some psychological help and as others have said their understanding of right and wrong is in serious question. Millions of kids see and read stuff everyday but don't go out and try to kill people. I think this needs to be examined closely and see where things went wrong and try to prevent it from happening to another family if they can. Is it the content they saw, is it poor parenting, is it psychological, is it their environment, is it a combination of all of the things listed, a kind of perfect storm.

PennyQuilts
06-04-2014, 02:22 PM
When a child commits a violent act, look to their mental health and the family. When two kids get together and do this inspired by an internet website, you've got other factors in The mix. What those factors are, I don't know.

trousers
06-04-2014, 02:59 PM
This sounds familiar...in the 80's it was Twisted Sister & Ozzie's fault, in the 50's you could blame Elvis, in the 20's jazz, the Victorian era the mere sight of a woman's ankle.
The internet...the newest in a long line of scapegoats for explaining human's f'd up behavior.

FritterGirl
06-04-2014, 03:35 PM
Judas Priest did it. 2 Families Sue Heavy-Metal Band As Having Driven Sons to Suicide - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/arts/2-families-sue-heavy-metal-band-as-having-driven-sons-to-suicide.html)

FritterGirl
06-04-2014, 03:38 PM
When a child commits a violent act, look to their mental health and the family. When two kids get together and do this inspired by:

...an internet website
...book
...music group
...a movie
...pinterest
...chat room forum
...friends at school
...something a teacher said
...something they saw on tv
...etc. etc. etc.


you've got other factors in The mix. What those factors are, I don't know.

But where does the blame end?