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       #Post#: 23--------------------------------------------------
       Defense: Girl Accused Of Stabbing Classmate Was Delusional
       By: FalcolnSkymere Date: September 12, 2017, 6:17 pm
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       A Wisconsin girl who told investigators she helped stab a
       classmate was convinced the crime would protect her and her
       family from a horror character called Slender Man who she
       thought was real, her attorney told jurors Tuesday.
       The defense is trying to convince jurors that Anissa Weier was
       suffering from a mental illness at the time of the stabbing at a
       Waukesha park in 2014 and therefore is not criminally
       responsible.
       Payton Leutner was stabbed 19 times in a plot by Weier and
       co-defendant Morgan Geyser and left in a wooded park where she
       eventually crawled for help after the girls left, according to
       prosecutors. A passing bicyclist found Leutner. Weier and Geyser
       were arrested later that day and said they were walking to meet
       Slender Man in a northern Wisconsin forest. All three girls were
       12 years old at the time.
       “Anissa’s broken mind caused her to lose touch with reality,”
       defense attorney Joseph Smith told jurors. “Anissa was under the
       command and control of a delusional disorder.”
       During his opening statements, Smith played portions of a police
       interrogation of Weier shortly after her arrest in which she
       described a plot to kill Leutner in order to become a proxy of
       Slender Man, whom she described as tall and faceless with
       numerous tentacles capable of killing her family in a matter of
       seconds.
       Weier, now 15, sat nearby while the snippets of the interview
       were played on a large screen for jurors.
       Smith described Weier as a loner who struggled to fit in with
       her peers and who found a friend in Geyser. While Weier was
       dealing with her parents’ divorce, teachers began noticing
       symptoms of depression, he said. With Geyser, Weier developed a
       “delusional belief system” and together they made a plan to kill
       Leutner and become Slender Man’s proxies, Smith said. Although
       Weier did not physically stab Leutner, in her mind she knew it
       had to be done, Smith told jurors.
       Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Osborne told
       jurors that Weier may have believed Slender Man was real, but
       she had the mental capacity to know she was committing a crime.
       Osborne says the initial plan was for Weier to stab Leutner, but
       Weier couldn’t do it and instead directed Geyser to do the
       stabbing.
       “They knew this was wrong. They understood what they were doing
       was wrong,” Osborne said.
       Osborne said the police interviews show Weier did not know she
       or her family could be in danger until Geyser told her after the
       attack had taken place.
       “She goes along because she wants to preserve the one and only
       friendship” with Geyser, he said.
       Both Weier and Geyser were charged with being a party to
       attempted first-degree intentional homicide. Weier struck a deal
       with prosecutors in August in which she pleaded guilty to being
       a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide,
       essentially acknowledging she committed all the elements of the
       offense. But she also pleaded not guilty due to mental illness
       of defect, setting up the trial on her mental status.
       Judge Michael Bohren told jurors they must decide whether Weier
       had a mental illness at the time of the crime and if so, whether
       she lacked the capacity to understand her wrongful conduct.
       Psychologists testified at a previous court hearing that Weier
       suffered from persistent depression and a delusional disorder
       linked to schizotypy, a diminished ability to separate reality
       from fantasy.
       At least 10 of the 12 jurors must agree on a verdict.
       Geyser has pleaded not guilty to being a party to first-degree
       attempted homicide. Her trial is set to begin Oct. 9.
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