Slenderman

Starred review from June 20, 2022
In this searing account, Hale (Kathleen Hale Is a Crazy Stalker: Six Essays) goes beyond the headlines to reveal how and why two 12-year-old girls, who wanted to please a fictional internet bogeyman known as the Slenderman, nearly killed another 12-year-old girl in Waukesha, Wis., in 2014. Morgan Geyser was an odd child, but her parents and schoolteachers overlooked her burgeoning schizophrenia, Hale writes. After Morgan discovered the Slenderman horror stories online, she and classmate Anissa Weier became obsessed with joining him and plotted to kill classmate Bella Leutner. Five months later, Morgan stabbed Bella 19 times while Anissa urged her on. Bella survived, and the two girls were quickly caught and confessed. Hale argues that the adults in the children’s lives could have prevented this tragedy had they paid attention to the warning signs and the girls’ internet searches. Both Morgan and Anissa were tried as adults, found mentally deficient and sentenced to a psychiatric hospital. Anissa was released in 2021, but Morgan remains there, Hale notes, suicidal and still delusional about demons. As the first researcher into the case to draw extensively from transcripts of vital records, Hale has produced what stands as the most accurate account to date of this horrifying episode. This is a must for true crime fans. Agent: Betsy Lerner, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

September 2, 2022
Hale's telling of the shocking 2014 crime known as the Slenderman Stabbing is a page-turning true-crime story as well as an eye-opening look at the treatment of convicts experiencing mental illness. Twelve-year-olds Morgan and Bella live in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and are best friends. Bella is actually Morgan's only friend, apart from the ones in her head, until she meets Anissa, who introduces Morgan to the fictional stories online about an evil character known as Slenderman. Believing he's real, and it's the only way to appease him, Morgan and Anissa hatch a plan to kill Bella in order to keep themselves safe. Most of the book details the events after the girls' arrest and focuses on the insistence to try them as adults, the trial and appeals, and Morgan's schizophrenia, which blossoms into full psychosis after the attempted murder. Hale is no stranger to controversy, and some readers may be turned off by her seeming empathy for Anissa and Morgan, which reads at the expense of Bella. Otherwise this is an engrossing account that is sure to include new information even to those familiar with the shocking story.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 15, 2022
An unsettling chronicle of the "Slenderman" stabbing and its subsequent courtroom debacle. In 2014, two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin, planned the murder of their friend. They believed her death would appease Slenderman, a fictional character popularized by the website Creepypasta, an aggregator of user-submitted ghost stories. On May 31, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured Payton Leutner into the woods and stabbed her 19 times. The girls left her for dead, although miraculously, Leutner survived. Quickly apprehended, Weier and Geyser entered the inconceivably slow stream of Wisconsin's criminal justice system. Hale breathlessly recounts this unspeakable tragedy but holds her focus on the courtroom and society's failures in treating the mentally ill. Her message is resonant: We must do better for those in need. However, Leutner's trauma often feels sidelined while Hale tries to promote awareness and dismantle the stigmas surrounding mental illness. Much of the book is Geyser's story. She was dealing with schizophrenia with little understanding that her illness was something treatable. "They said I was trying to get attention," she explained years after the incident. Her parents were in denial, and her "teachers had neither the time nor the training" to be supportive. Complicating things further, Wisconsin law allows children to be tried as adults in certain circumstances, a legal gray area that stuck Weier and Geyser in a dangerous three-year limbo between jail and a mental health institute before their judgment. The power of online media remains chillingly present throughout the narrative. During a "livestream of the trial on Facebook," Hale writes, "internet commenters were offering their opinion of [Geyser's] character," some even calling her an "evil creature" that should be killed. Beyond the horrific incident at its center, the book expands into a searing criticism of how society treats (and mistreats) the mentally ill. A relevant true-crime cautionary tale as well as an urgent plea for mental health awareness.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.