Slenderman Verdict: Weier Mentally Ill At Time of Stabbing

WAUKESHA COUNTY, WI — After a week-long trial, a jury determined that Anissa Weier was suffering from a mental illness during the May 2014 stabbing of 12-year-old Payton Leutner to satisfy the fictional character Slenderman.

Weier visibly shook as the verdict was read late Friday. After 11 hours of deliberations by the jury, including an initial verdict that was rejected by the judge for being inconsistent, the jury reconvened late Friday and returned the verdict.

Weier cried as the verdict was finally read at long last just before 11 p.m. Friday evening.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren said Weier will be committed to a mental institution, with the ability to petition for her release after three years. A plea agreement struck last month stipulated that Weier will spend at least three years in a mental institution if she were mentally ill, and ten years behind bars if she was not.

During the trial, a psychologist testified that Weier developed a condition called shared delusional disorder, a conditional in which two people share the same delusional system and support each other in their belief. In the Slenderman case, the defense argued that Weier and Geyser developed a strong emotional bond that led to their shared belief that the paranormal character Slenderman existed in the real world.

First Verdict Rejected

The jury rendered a verdict earlier Friday night, however the judge did not accept it over an inconsistency in the answers to the jury form. The judge has ordered the jury to return to deliberations.

Weier was reportedly in tears even before the verdict was read late Friday evening. She visibly shook and clasped her hands in front of her face as the judge began to read the verdict in the courtroom.

But the verdict would have to wait until after a five-minute recess.

Waukesha Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren said there was an issue with dissenting jurors in the case, stating that the dissenting jurors were different for each of the two questions on the jury form. As a result, the Judge said, there was an incomplete verdict.

The questions on the jury form were as follows:

1) At the time the crime was committed, did the defendant have a mental disease or defect?

2) If you answered yes to question one: As a result of the mental disease or defect, did the defendant lack substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct or to conform that conduct to the requirement of law?

According to state statute, a verdict of the same five-sixths of the jurors — 10 of the 12 jurors in this case — will decide the verdict of the jury, and the jury must agree on all questions. If there are two questions the jury must agree on, the same five-sixths of the jury must agree on both questions.

"You can't have a completed verdict unless a jury responds to both questions with the correct number, and we don't have that in this case," the judge said. "They have the opportunity to answer either yes or no on each question, and in order to have that yes or no be sustained it has to be the same ten."

Waukesha County Deputy District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz was also concerned about the apparent inconsistency. "I don't believe under the circumstances here that a juror can vote no for question one and then yes to question two. I don't believe that's jurors following the law under the circumstances," he said in court Friday.

As a result, the Judge Bohren won't accept Friday's jury verdict, and the jury will return to deliberations.

Mental Illness or Defect

The panel of jurors assigned to the case were charged with the task of determining whether Weier was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the May 2014 attack that resulted in the stabbing of Leutner.

Weier and Morgan Geyser were originally charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide as a party to the crime. Weier pled guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide as a party to the crime in August.

Weier also plead not guilty due to mental illness or defect, which led to this week's trial.

Geyser's trial is scheduled for Oct. 9. She has also pled not guilty due to mental illness or defect.

12 Year Olds Plotted Murder

The girls were identified in open court and the criminal complaint as Morgan E. Geyser and Anissa E. Weier, who were 12 years old at the time of the incident in 2014.

According to police, Geyser and Weier both plotted for months to kill Payton Leutner, luring her to a weekend birthday-party sleepover and then a wooded park where one they stabbed her repeatedly, according to authorities.

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. After the incident, Leutner, also 12, was barely alive when she crawled to a nearby road in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where a passing bicyclist found her the next morning.

Leutner underwent surgery at Waukesha Memorial Hospital before she made a faster-than-expected recovery and was back in school a few months later.

Fascinated With Slenderman

The girls were particularly fascinated with the story of Slenderman, a killer of children. According to the criminal complaint, the girls planned to kill their friend so they could be "proxies of Slenderman."

Sacrificing their friend ensured them special positions as “proxies” for Slender Man, a killer of children, police said, and the girls planned the attack for months. They planned to walk hundreds of miles north in the forst to meet Slender Man — a tall, thin, blank-faced figure in a black suit alternatively viewed as a force of evil or an avenging angel.

Earlier, the 2nd District Appeals court affirmed a lower court's determination that it was reasonable to try both girls as adults. Citing the ruling last year, the appeals court said if the girls were found guilty in the juvenile system they would be released at age 18 with no supervision or mental health treatment.

---------

file photo