Watch CBS News

Doctors differ on mental state of suspect in Slenderman case

WAUKESHA, Wis. - Doctors disagree over whether the second of two 12-year-old girls charged with stabbing a classmate to please the fictional horror character Slenderman is fit to stand trial, a judge and attorneys said Wednesday.

A state psychiatrist filed a report saying he found the girl mentally capable of helping with her defense, but defense attorney Joseph Smith Jr. questioned the state doctor's qualifications and said he had a report from another doctor who disagreed.

Waukesha County Judge Michael Bohren scheduled another hearing for Dec. 18 because the state's doctor was not in court to testify Wednesday. Both sides are expected to call witnesses to testify then.

Prosecutors say the two girls plotted for months to kill their classmate before luring the child to a wooded park after a sleepover in Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, and stabbing her 19 times. Payton Leutner survived by crawling from the woods to a sidewalk where a bicyclist found her and called 911.

Wisconsin law requires suspects who are at least 10 years old to be charged as adults in severe crimes. Attorneys for the girls arrested in the stabbing have said they will try to get their clients' cases moved back to juvenile court. The Associated Press is not naming the girls while their cases could still be moved.

Bohren ordered one of the girls to receive mental health treatment after a court-appointed psychologist testified in August that the girl claims to see and hear things that others cannot - including unicorns, Slenderman and Voldemort, an antagonist in the Harry Potter series. A hearing on her condition is set for Nov. 12.

On Wednesday, Smith said one reason he was contesting Dr. Robert Rawski's assessment of his client was that he didn't believe Rawski had the expertise needed to evaluate juveniles. Smith did not go into detail.

Both girls' attorneys have questioned whether they would receive appropriate care in the adult system, which is not designed for 12-year-olds.

But the juvenile court system might not be much better for the girls than the adult system, said Tina Freiburger, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor who has studied the juvenile system. She said most children who end up in the juvenile system have been truant, missed a curfew or were involved in a minor crime, while the Slenderman case is rare in its violence.

"Luckily, we don't have a lot of 12-year-olds going out and committing crimes like this," Freiburger said. "That's a good thing. But then the bad thing is that when we have it happen, we don't have a system in place to really deal with their needs."

Studies done in multiple states have found more than half of the children charged as adults have some type of mental illness, she said. But she wasn't aware of any research that compared the mental health care provided to children in the adult system to that in the juvenile system to see which was more effective.

Some criminal justice experts have called for programs specifically for children charged as adults because of the mental illness, levels of violence and long criminal histories that often mark those cases, Freiburger said.

48 Hours' Crimesider shed light on this very topic earlier this week in addressing the case of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy who is charged as an adult with killing a 90-year-old woman. In Pennsylvania, all homicide charges must be filed in adult court. Marsha Levick, deputy director and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, says "the idea of prescribing criminal responsibility to a 10-year-old defies all logic."

The boy would be much better suited to the juvenile justice system, where he would likely receive therapy and counseling services, she says, and where the primary goal is rehabilitation, not imprisonment.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.