‘Slender Man’ stabbing victim out of hospital

A 12-year-old girl, who according to the police, was repeatedly stabbed by two classmates trying to curry favour with the Slender Man fictional online horror character, has been released from hospital, the victim’s parents said Friday night.

The girl narrowly survived being stabbed 19 times. A spokeswoman for the girl’s family issued a statement on Friday, saying the girl was released from Waukesha Memorial Hospital.

“She is excited to be out of hospital, see her pets and continue along the road to recovery. Our family is extremely grateful for the outpouring of support and love from not only the local community, but from around the nation and the world,” the statement said.

The two 12-year-old girls have been charged, as adults, with first-degree attempted homicide in the stabbing. Police say the girls told detectives they wanted to kill the other girl in hopes of pleasing Slender Man, a spooky character they read about on a horror website.

Police say that after stabbing the victim, the girls left her lying in the woods. The victim crawled to a road where a bicyclist found her lying on the sidewalk.

In their statement, the victim’s parents said they have kept their discussions with their daughter about the 31 May stabbing short. But they said they have asked their daughter how she found the strength to crawl out of the woods.

“Her response was simple; ‘I wanted to live,’” the statement read.

Doctors previously told police that the victim was lucky to be alive because the knife just missed a major artery.

Police have not identified the victim, and her parents have asked friends to keep her name secret.

Anthony Cotton, an attorney for one of the girls charged in the stabbing, has said he will push to get the girl’s case transferred to juvenile court, where more social services and mental health treatment would be available for her.

The two underage perpetrators have been charged, as adults, with first-degree attempted homicide in a stabbing that nearly killed another child of the same age. The two girls told investigators that they plotted for months to kill their friend because a character called Slender Man required them to kill someone before they could become his “proxy.”

The girls told investigators that they read about Slender Man on the horror website www.creepypasta.wikia.com. It’s not clear whether they obtained access to the website at home or at school, but a school administrator said employees were reviewing various websites to see if they should be blocked after the stabbing.

According to court documents, the girls told investigators that they invited their friend to a sleepover at one of their houses on Friday and planned to duct tape her mouth while she was sleeping, stab her in the neck, put the covers over her to make it look like she was sleeping and run away to Slender Man’s mansion.

They backed out of that plan, deciding to kill her on Saturday in a nearby park bathroom, so that the victim’s blood would flow down the drain. They convinced the girl to go to the park with them and got her into the bathroom. One of the girls handed the knife to the other but she couldn’t bring herself to stab the victim, she said. She gave the knife back to the other girl but she couldn’t go through with it either, the complaint said.

They went into the woods, where one girl pushed the victim down and sat on her. The girls then traded the knife back and forth between them before one of them finally tackled the victim again and began stabbing her, according to the complaint.

The girls left the victim lying in the woods. She crawled to a road where a bicyclist found her lying on the sidewalk. Police arrived and the victim gave them the name of one of the perpetrators of the attack. (AP)