For more than two years, since they were 12 years-old, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser have spent their life inside separate Wisconsin facilities awaiting trial before being charged as adults for attempted first-degree intentional homicide.<\/p>\n
If found guilty of stabbing their friend Payton Leunter 19 times and leaving her for dead in a park, they each face up to 65 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThey did it. They admitted it. Of course they\u2019re guilty, but how much do we hold them accountable?\u201d asks Irene Taylor Brodsky, the director of HBO documentary Beware the Slenderman<\/em>, which debuts Jan. 23. \u201cAll of this is predicated on the fundamental bedrock principle that children cannot be held accountable for the same things as adults.\u201d<\/p>\n Anissa and Morgan, now 15 and 14 respectively, have pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness or defect. Their attorneys have filed motions to move the upcoming trial into the juvenile justice system but have been repeatedly denied.<\/p>\n On May 31, 2014, the girls told investigators they plotted to kill their friend because Slenderman, a fictional Internet character, would harm them and their loved ones if they didn\u2019t. Payton, also 12 at the time, miraculously survived after she crawled to a nearby bike path and a passerby called 911.<\/p>\n \u201c can be anywhere from 6 feet to 14-feet tall. He constantly wears a suit. He doesn\u2019t have a face. His skin is white,\u201d Anissa told investigators in a taped interview. \u201cAt his own will, he can, like, explode these tendrils from his back, and, like, strangle his victims.\u201d<\/p>\n In the documentary, Morgan\u2019s mother talks about her daughter\u2019s fascination with the character.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I wasn\u2019t thrilled about her interest in it, I didn\u2019t see the harm in it either,\u201d says Angie Geyser, Morgan\u2019s mother. \u201cWe never thought for a moment that she could possibly, for a moment, believe it was real.\u201d<\/p>\n Psychologist Dr. Abigail Baird says teens are \u201cone or two clicks away\u201d from anything they want to explore on the Internet. And the incident was a \u201cstrange, perfect storm\u201d of influences and factors.<\/p>\n\n \u201cPeople are looking for a villain here and it\u2019s not the Internet \u2013 it\u2019s the criminal justice system,\u201d Baird says. \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re guilty in the true sense of the word. I think they\u2019re responsible for what happened. To be guilty is to understand what you\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n For more than two years, since they were 12 years-old, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser have spent their life inside separate Wisconsin facilities awaiting trial before being charged as adults for attempted first-degree intentional homicide. If found guilty of stabbing their friend Payton Leunter 19 times and leaving her for dead in a park, they each face up …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[1049,1048],"yoast_head":"\n