Waukesha stabbing sends chills even through police

Abe Van Dyke
Waukesha fire rescue personnel wheel a 12-year-old victim of a stabbing to a waiting ambulance Saturday on Big Bend Road in Waukesha. Two 12-year-old girls, Anissa E. Weier and Morgan E. Geyser, are charged in adult court for the attempted murder of their friend.
Published on: 6/2/2014

A disturbing stabbing case — one that even unsettled local authorities — this week in Waukesha left one girl fighting for her life and two of her friends, who reportedly admitted to the crime, in jail.

The suspects, Morgan E. Geyser and Anissa E. Weier, appeared in court on Monday, June 2. Both are being charged as adults with attempted first-degree intentional homicide following an incident in which their 12-year-old friend and Horning Middle School classmate was stabbed 19 times two days earlier.

If convicted, the two 12-year-old suspects could face up to 60 years in jail. Weier and Geyser, who are both being held at the Washington County Detention Center, will return to court in Waukesha County on Wednesday, June 11, for a status review.

Serious stab wounds

The victim — who is being treated at Waukesha Memorial Hospital with stab wounds to her arm, legs and torso — was in stable condition, though still fighting for her life, after undergoing surgery Saturday, Waukesha police said Monday.

The girl sustained injuries to some of her major organs.

According to medical tests, one of the stab wounds to the girl's chest missed a major artery near her heart by one millimeter. Police said if that artery was struck the girl would have died within minutes.

During laparoscopic surgery on the girl's abdomen, injuries were also located to the girl's liver, pancreas and stomach.

'Disturbing investigation'

According to Waukesha police, the suspects planned to kill the victim for several months to prove themselves to a fictitious Internet character that talks about death and horror.

The victim was allegedly taken to a wooded area near Rivera Drive and Big Bend Road and attacked on Saturday, May 31, by her friends, according to official reports. She was left to die there.

Despite her life-threatening injuries, the victim was able to crawl out of the woods and make it to the end of the road before she was found by a bicyclist.

"Please help me," the victim said, according to the criminal complaint. "I've been stabbed."

When asked who did this to her, she said it was her best friend, Geyser.

The suspects were located on foot several hours later, about 2:30 p.m., by a Waukesha County sheriff's deputy and taken into custody. A large kitchen knife, with a 5-inch blade, believed to be used in the stabbing has also been recovered, Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said.

"As the details became more apparent in our investigation it's extremely disturbing, as a parent and as a chief of police, especially the age of our suspects and being female," Jack said. "This is a very disturbing investigation."

Horrific website and idea

According to the suspects, their crimes can be traced to a website that talks about death and horror stories. The criminal complaint says that Weier learned about the website, Creepypasta.wiki, last October and she introduced Geyser to the site, which allows people to create and write their own stories.

In these stories, Weier learned about a man named Slenderman.

Weier told police that Slenderman is the leader of the Creepypasta and Slenderman is at the top of the triangle. Just below Slenderman is the killer and below the killer is the proxy, the complaint says. Weier said in order to be a proxy you needed to kill a person. This would show your dedication to Slenderman, Weier reportedly said, according to the complaint.

"We should be proxies of Slender," Geyser told Weier, according to the complaint. To be proxies of Slender, Geyser said "we have to kill (the victim) to prove ourselves worthy to the Slender."

Weier said that she was surprised but also excited to prove that he existed and to prove the skeptics were wrong that Slender existed, the complaint says.

Planning a killing

Geyser told Weier in February that on Friday, May 30, they were going to kill the victim. Geyser told Weier then that she could have two friends over every year for her birthday.

The three girls went to Skateland in Waukesha that day and after returning to Geyser's house for the sleepover, Geyser and Weier planned to kill the girl when she was sleeping around 2 a.m. Saturday. The plan was to put duct tape over the girl's mouth, stab her in the neck, put the covers over her to make it look like she was sleeping. They would then run.

The plan, however, changed and Weier indicated that on Saturday morning, she and Geyser were going to kill the victim in the David's Park bathroom. According to the criminal complaint, Weier said the floor had a drain for the blood to go down.

The complaint says they wanted to kill her in there, lock the door and run leaving for the Nicolet National Park in Wisconsin. They believed Slender, as Weier called him, lives in a mansion in the Nicolet National Park. The plan, according to the criminal complaint was to kill the girl and walk to Slender's mansion.

Geyser grabbed a knife from the house and had it in her pocket, the complaint says. After beginning their plot in the bathroom, the two eventually decided they would kill the girl in the woods.

The girls were playing hide-and-seek when Weier pushed the girl down and sat on her. Weier then told Geyser "go ballistic, go crazy," according to the criminal complaint. Weier said Geyser then tackled the girl and started stabbing her. Weier said when Geyser got off of the victim, the victim screamed, "I hate you. I trusted you."

Geyser later told a Waukesha detective that "it was weird that I didn't feel remorse," according to the criminal complaint.

Facing modern danger

In a news conference Monday afternoon at the Waukesha Police Department Station, Jack said this incident should be "a wake-up call for parents."

"Keeping our children safe is more challenging now than in year's past," Jack said. "The Internet has changed the way we live. The Internet can be full of dark and wicked things.

"Unrestricted and unmonitored by children, it's a growing and alarming problem. We need to protect our children on all websites, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and no unrestricted or unmonitored access."