A jury on Friday determined that a 15-year-old Wisconsin girl who stabbed her classmate 19 times to please a fictional online character named "Slenderman" was mentally ill at the time of the attack. As a result, Anissa Weier will avoid jail time and instead be committed to a mental institution.
Weier was 12 years old when she and a friend, Morgan Geyser, attacked their classmate, who survived. Geyser has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a psychologist testified that Weier became convinced that Slenderman was real through something called "shared delusional disorder." Both girls were charged with attempted murder and were tried as adults. Had she been found guilty, Weier could have spent up to 10 years in prison. Geyser's trial begins in October.
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