Lawyer: 1 girl committed in Slender Man case

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE

One of two teenage girls accused of trying to kill a classmate near Milwaukee to appease the online fictional character Slender Man is being treated at a state mental hospital, the girl’s attorney said.

A judge committed the 13-year-old to the hospital in January, the (Milwaukee) Journal Sentinel reported Sunday. The girl had been diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia during a court-ordered competency evaluation in 2014.

“She’s made substantial progress,” said the girl’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, adding that she recently began expressing remorse.

The other girl is being held at a West Bend juvenile jail.

The two girls are charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the May 2014 attack on Payton Leutner. Investigators say the girls lured Payton to a park in Waukesha, about 20 miles west of Milwaukee, where they stabbed her 19 times in an attempted sacrifice to a fictitious horror character called Slender Man. Payton was left for dead but crawled from a wooded area where she was discovered by a bicyclist.

After surgeries, Payton has returned to school.