GUILTY WI - 12-Year-Old Girls Stab Friend 19 Times for Slenderman, Waukesha, 31 May 2014 #1

[Spice]

I'll share:

[SIZE=+1][/SIZE]I know some of you are saying or inferring that the term "evil" is really about a supernatural or inherently religious belief. But that's not the only definition in the dictionary and we don't get to dictate definitions to everyone else, respectfully.

I believe in evil. I believe wholeheartedly that some people are evil. But as to whether they are "born that way", like some studies suggest, I'm not sure. I think that's probably too simplistic. Instead, I think the studies appear to show that some people are born with more of a propensity to be evil, than others.

I also think it is risky to both state that people are born that way and to pretend that evil does not exist or is just some superstitious, unthinking hocus pocus. The term denotes choice, really, even for those who some believe are born that way. It infers that the person who is evil knows right from wrong, can ultimately control themselves, but chooses not, due to a desire to benefit themselves or due to pleasure derived from the suffering of others.

If we are going to state that no one is evil, then I think we risk a slippery slope of unaccountability. Because the alternative to that is a manifestation of something the criminal cannot control, about how their brain works and what they do with that brain.

The guy who murdered the Groene family - he's evil. He could control himself but chose not to. Hitler, Mengele, they were evil. They chose to do what they did. Their conduct was not a compulsion. It was not mandated by their brains.

Same with the monster who killed Susan Powell and her sons. And scott peterson. And casey anthony. There are so many examples of truly evil people, IMO.

Can children be evil? I certainly think they can do evil things. But I also think that depending on age and the severity of the crime, they are more amendable to rehabilitation, to actual change, to learning empathy, than others. Thus, the 8 year old who shoots his father dead because he finds his dad domineering may have a better chance of rehabilitation than a 15 year old who plans the gruesome and more up close and personal bludgeoning murders of his grandparents for fun (edmund kemper).

I'm not willing to give up on kids so easily. Even the most horrible ones. However, these girls scare me because they have a flat affect that may not be related to mental illness. To me it is too coincidental that two psychotic kids would meet and become friends and plan a murder and carry it out all the while no one realized they were both insane.

Nevertheless, I myself did a couple of horrible things at age 12 (nothing like murder), that I have never forgotten. Looking back, I understand why I did what I did, and I realize that it is possible for even an empathetic or sensitive kid do to something horrible that they later regret very much.

Of course when you start getting into the realm of pre-planning and serious criminal acts, like sexual assault, murder, then society has a need and a right to weigh the danger of release against the hope of rehabilitation.
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I posted about the "evil gene" or Anti Social gene pages back. They have found a gene through the genome project, that predisposes an individual to Anti Social behaviors. However, this study found that the gene can lay dormant or it in some cases can be "triggered" to become active when the person suffers abuse.

So again, I maintain my opinion based on the research,that no one is "born evil". You can have a predisposition but the gene may never express, and in others it can express when they suffer abuse. So their enviornment and life experiences ultimately effect the gene and whether or not it will become active or lay dormant.

We all have genes that predispose us for one thing or another in our physical and mental health. But stating that there are studies that unequivocally prove that people are born evil do not exist.

If they did, we would have solved the greatest debate in psychology since its inception. Nature vs Nurture has not been solved.

It is a truism that genetic processes need an environment in which to become expressed. As such, environmental changes will turn these genes "on or off" throughout a life time. It's about predisposition and environment.

Which is exactly Nature vs. Nurture.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1015754122318#page-1

 

[Sunshine95]

I'm curios if one girl is the more sociopathic, and the other was less cognitively apt... The one fueled the others beliefs and made her believe the story to convince her to do this with her? Because she wanted to kill, and used and manipulated the other to have a partner? Total speculation of course. So proud and happy for the survivor who is obviously a strong girl!

 

[blue22]

Here's a forensic psych who doesn't believe the Slendy story:


On Wednesday, forensic psychologist Brian Russell appeared on the network to discuss the strange case of the two 12-year-old girls who stabbed their friend nearly to death and then blamed an internet meme called "Slender Man" for it. Russell was there to sound a note of caution, it seems, arguing that there is no need to have some kind of mass panic over paranormal horror stories on the internet, because the girls probably had individualized motivations and were just using their enthusiasm for Slender Man as an excuse. Here is what he said:

"I think this is much more probably about immature [sic], hatred, jealousy, narcissism, and probably coupled with insufficient parenting—probably what we have here are a couple morally underdeveloped, hateful, jealous, little minds with insufficient supervision and parenting. It’s probably a more run-of-the-mill attempted murder really."


http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...ys_girls_are_more_likely_to_have_hateful.html

That news station...not the best for actual truth. (Not that any are, but I personally find that one the worse. They have the most crackpot experts.) Not to mention, his language make him sound quite unintelligent.

I actually think this whole slenderman thing, is just a guise. I don't buy it. With that said, I'm not comfortable buying what that man is selling.

 

[blue22]

BBM

I'm intrigued that you say this. Boys do this naturally - fantasize about slaying the villain. Boy fantasies are about that - protecting the populace from villains. Society right now, in general, is telling them to cut this out and punishing them for this hero fantasy, and now we're left with a weak population who can't even defend itself against crime because the boys have been taught to not be heroes and fight back, but rather hide and call 911, but that's a discussion for a different day.

Girls in general don't take on that role, and never have in the history of time. Very few girls see themselves as the protector of the population against crime.

Thank goodness no one ever fed me that backwards antiquated way of thinking. My friends, sisters, and I had a great time being the hero growing up. Human nature makes people want to be the hero, not gender.

Come on now

 

[blue22]

Who on earth is suggesting you do that?

A lot of people are minimizing their role in this, by saying they committed murder, because other people pushed them to it.

 

[JeannaT]

You must be kidding. Girls have been taking on that role for quite some time. Rosie the Riverter was just spotlighted for WWII. Can't get more a protector of the population than that. Wonder Woman, Brenda Starr, Katniss Everdeen or however you spell it.

To say girls perceive themselves to be weak is an incredibly sexist comment.

JMO

No, I'm not kidding you. And I didn't say girls perceive themselves as weak. I said they don't perceive themselves as rescuers of the endangered masses. That's a role, not a strength level.

And Rosie The Riveter wasn't a fighter. She was a worker. She was a very physical strong and able woman who stepped up to the plate to work in a factory when there weren't the traditional male employees available. She was a symbol of America pulling together in war - as much a symbol as victory gardens were and willingness to carefully ration. She wasn't a fighter.

Although there are a few kind of hypersexualized female superheroes, they're more a nod to male sexual fantasy than something girls aspire to.

And I stand by that. There may be a few girls who perceive themselves as riding in to battle on a white knight to rescue others, it's primarily a male desire.

*hides behind the couch, but stands behind seeing this both in research and real life*

 

[animlzrule]

Thank goodness no one ever fed me that backwards antiquated way of thinking. My friends, sisters, and I had a great time being the hero growing up. Human nature makes people want to be the hero, not gender.

Come on now

:floorlaugh::floorlaugh: I know! I thought I had entered a time warp or something!:facepalm::facepalm:

 

[JeannaT]

:floorlaugh::floorlaugh: I know! I thought I had entered a time warp or something!:facepalm::facepalm:

I do wonder, what ages people in this thread are, and whether they have raised kids.

I'm 54, very liberal, and fully bought into the idea as a sociology major that kids come to the world as clean slates and it is society that has taught girls to be better communicators/more nurturing/general a little more level-headed and boys were rougher, more inclined to fight, more inclined to take risks because society had told them to be that way and rewarded them for such behavior. Left to their own devices, my generation was taught, boys and girls would all interchangably be good at communication, science, organization, math, aggressive behavior, etc. It was all about letting them decide for themselves. So to that end my generation attempted to dress our kids in gender neutral clothing and bought gender neutral toys and encouraged playing with dolls and legos equally.

We still laugh about that. We still laugh about taking barbies out of the hands of girls and putting building blocks in their hands. When we turned around, the girls had tucked the building blocks into bed. And the boys had bent the barbies at the waist and were using them as toy pistols. I'm not making this up.

Which is NOT to say that all girls exhibit traditional girl behaviors, or all boys exhibit traditional boy behaviors. And because I was a fierce tomboy myself, I fully believe in encouraging girls who like to rock climb and catch snakes.

I'm just saying. If we decide boys and girls are identical and that there aren't some generalizations that can be made about what behavior and characteristics are more typical of each gender, we've missed an enormous truth.

A truth my late 70's liberal arts education tried to ignore.

But anyway, this is far afield from the discussion of this thread. And my friends would laugh really loud to think that anyone was imagining I'm in the dark ages or not seriously liberal.

 

[Cubby]

There could be an element of 'tough talk' going on though. It's how some kids respond to pressure.

Example - and I do *not* mean to kick off a discussion of the case here - Damien Echols under arrest and in court, he did *nothing* to help himself at all the way he carried on. He was clearly trying to use defenses that worked against other teenagers, but in the adult world his actions translated as something else entirely.

Cubby, to give you an idea of why the notion they could have been influenced makes a deal of sense is that the Slenderman websites discourage talk of him not being real, there's also an element in the various Slenderman sites that likes to talk as if they *are* him and say some pretty horrible things. Plus, the whole concept found its legs in 4chan, which is actually a great site but also full of internet trolls. It's a recipe for some smartarse kid telling a couple of gullible 12's that it's all real and for a joke, telling them 'how to' become proxies.

I can see it, I really can.

I'm not sold on it though, I'm sort of swinging between A/impressionable kids influenced by troll, B/delusional kid + friend, and C/Slendy's an excuse and it was all about jealousy.

Any of these are plausible in my mind. I think the psych evals and police examination of their computers might turn up information that swings it one way or another.

Catching up again. The following link depicts my/my childs experience with Slenderman. My experience is limited to youtube stuff and one similiar style online game my kiddo played which cost less than the slenderman game.

Personally, I find this game scary, but far less scary than the horror flicks we watched as kids in the 70's.

I found it more entertaining because it was the gamers actions while playing which which were intended to scare the viewer. (I actually find Toby T talented for the age group of his audience. He's made a very good living with his youtube video's)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1tfQBMgF1U

 

[Cubby]

Haven't some kids around this age committed suicide due to trolls on the Internet targeting them?

I think these two girls are deeply mentally disturbed and the public is trying to understand how it reached such a catastrophic climax. Only a professional can begin to delve and try to make sense of all of this.

The aspect of them engaging in fantasy at their age isn't as troubling to me as the fact that they seemed to idolize the villain rather than want to slay the villian and thus be "heroes." They were wanting to kill someone who cared about them even though their victim had done nothing to them. She wasn't a bully, wasn't someone they had to even be friends with. I can't imagine how emotionally traumatized she must be. If somebody was egging these girls on to do this, investigators need to find that out.

JMO

I don't think anyone outside these two were egging them on. The two perps were egging each other's ego's on. They were feeding off each other. I've seen that often, the ego's egging each other on to justify their malicious actions. But never to the point of murder.

I don't think either of these girls would have commited this crime individually, but together they cheered/egged each other on. I can see parents possibly thinking that wasn't such a bad thing and viewing that type of behavior as assertion. Probably even healthy assertion. I don't know that anyone was aware the girls would cross the line of actually acting it out. Peers probably saw their interests as weird and created some distance, but I haven't seen anything to indicate anyone saw this coming.

Of course based on the info released to the public.

 

[blue22]

I do wonder, what ages people in this thread are, and whether they have raised kids.

I'm 54, very liberal, and fully bought into the idea as a sociology major that kids come to the world as clean slates and it is society that has taught girls to be better communicators/more nurturing/general a little more level-headed and boys were rougher, more inclined to fight, more inclined to take risks because society had told them to be that way and rewarded them for such behavior. Left to their own devices, my generation was taught, boys and girls would all interchangably be good at communication, science, organization, math, aggressive behavior, etc. It was all about letting them decide for themselves. So to that end my generation attempted to dress our kids in gender neutral clothing and bought gender neutral toys and encouraged playing with dolls and legos equally.

We still laugh about that. We still laugh about taking barbies out of the hands of girls and putting building blocks in their hands. When we turned around, the girls had tucked the building blocks into bed. And the boys had bent the barbies at the waist and were using them as toy pistols. I'm not making this up.

Which is NOT to say that all girls exhibit traditional girl behaviors, or all boys exhibit traditional boy behaviors. And because I was a fierce tomboy myself, I fully believe in encouraging girls who like to rock climb and catch snakes.

I'm just saying. If we decide boys and girls are identical and that there aren't some generalizations that can be made about what behavior and characteristics are more typical of each gender, we've missed an enormous truth.

A truth my late 70's liberal arts education tried to ignore.

But anyway, this is far afield from the discussion of this thread. And my friends would laugh really loud to think that anyone was imagining I'm in the dark ages or not seriously liberal.

Well, I definitely agree that males and females are typically engineering differently biologically. I think they typically play differently and learn differently. They are differently emotionally, in so many cases.

With that said, fantasizing coming to the rescue is a human condition...not a male one.

 

[human]

Well, I definitely agree that males and females are typically engineering differently biologically. I think they typically play differently and learn differently. They are differently emotionally, in so many cases.

With that said, fantasizing coming to the rescue is a human condition...not a male one.

We have Joan of Arc. Are there others?

It does seem that females who want to save the world do it in a different way than at the head of a weapon.

Erin Brockovich, Lois Gibbs From the Love Canal fight. Marion Edelman Wright of the Children's Defense fund. The suffragettes, Gloria Steinem. But not vanquishing evil with weapons

 

[Karmady]

I do wonder, what ages people in this thread are, and whether they have raised kids.

I'm 54, very liberal, and fully bought into the idea as a sociology major that kids come to the world as clean slates and it is society that has taught girls to be better communicators/more nurturing/general a little more level-headed and boys were rougher, more inclined to fight, more inclined to take risks because society had told them to be that way and rewarded them for such behavior. Left to their own devices, my generation was taught, boys and girls would all interchangably be good at communication, science, organization, math, aggressive behavior, etc. It was all about letting them decide for themselves. So to that end my generation attempted to dress our kids in gender neutral clothing and bought gender neutral toys and encouraged playing with dolls and legos equally.

We still laugh about that. We still laugh about taking barbies out of the hands of girls and putting building blocks in their hands. When we turned around, the girls had tucked the building blocks into bed. And the boys had bent the barbies at the waist and were using them as toy pistols. I'm not making this up.

Which is NOT to say that all girls exhibit traditional girl behaviors, or all boys exhibit traditional boy behaviors. And because I was a fierce tomboy myself, I fully believe in encouraging girls who like to rock climb and catch snakes.

I'm just saying. If we decide boys and girls are identical and that there aren't some generalizations that can be made about what behavior and characteristics are more typical of each gender, we've missed an enormous truth.

A truth my late 70's liberal arts education tried to ignore.

But anyway, this is far afield from the discussion of this thread. And my friends would laugh really loud to think that anyone was imagining I'm in the dark ages or not seriously liberal.

Right? Math scores are a great example of that. Remember how we were told that girls had lower math scores because of bias and expectations? The gap in math SAT scores is still about 30 points. Or at least it was in 2006. Turns out, girls just tend to have less math aptitude than boys do, with more than a handful of exceptions, but exceptions nonetheless. What's more, even though it's been recognized that males tend to have superior spatial relations aptitude, people in certain (if not most) academic circles are still killing themselves to blame other factors. I'm living proof that girls tend to suck at math. Just for example, my math SAT score was 160 points (!) lower than my verbal. OK, back on topic jmo

 

[Salem]

Closing for a few minutes to get caught up and nip this political discourse in the bud. I will also be starting a new thread.

We need to stay focused here, you guys.

Salem

 

[Salem]

New thread here: WI - 12-Year-Old Girls Stab Friend 19 Times for Slenderman, #2 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

Salem