The Latest: Teen's competency in dispute as trial opens for Slender Man stabbing suspect

The Latest: Teen’s competency in dispute as trial opens for Slender Man stabbing suspect
NEXT:

Waukesha, WIS. (CBS 58) -- Opening statements were delivered Tuesday morning in the trial of one of the two suspects charged in the Slender Man stabbing case.

Anissa Weier agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge. Now, a jury will decide whether she was mentally competent when she stabbed a classmate 3 years ago.

What both sides asked the jury to focus on - Anissa's mental state, the day of the crime and leading up to it. Right away, Weier's lawyers brought us back to the moment the girls were arrested.

"So I was really scared knowing that Slenderman could easily kill my whole family in 3 seconds," Anissa Weier said in an interrogation video.

"Anissa latched onto Morgan and together the both of them became unhinged. Ultimately they hatched a plan, hatched a plan to fulfill the wishes of the head of the world of their delusional belief system to protect their families," said Anissa Weier's Defense Attorney Joseph Smith Jr.

Weier held back tears as her attorney explained her diagnosis to the court. Court appointed doctors diagnosed her with a type of Schizophrenia and Shared Delusional Disorder, saying she fed off Morgan's schizophrenia and delusions. 

The state says those diagnoses are flawed and even if Weier did have a disease, she knew what she was doing.

"If they were really truly afraid of an immediate harm to themselves or their families, from a fictional character that apparently knows all and sees all, wouldn't they be thinking 'oh geez if we don't do this Slender Man's gonna be mad.'That's not what happened, they don't. They go back to sleep!" said Prosecutor and Attorney Keven Osborne.

Weier's father was the first witness. He talked about the troubles his daughter was dealing with around the time of the stabbing - divorce and a death in the family.

We also learned today who is serving on the jury, 8 men, and 8 women. They range in ages from 20 to 80. Weier's attorneys say they still have a handful of witnesses to call during the afternoon. 


Share this article: