ABSTRACT
Three 12-year-old girls entered a wooded park near their homes in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Two of the girls stabbed the third 19 times with a five-inch blade. The perpetrators left on foot. The victim survived. The following morning, she emerged from the forest, bloodied and gravely injured. A passing bicyclist found her and called 911, saving her life. The case became an Internet cause célèbre when the two perpetrators told police of their shared desire to kill the victim in order to meet Slender Man, a boogeyman who began as a meme on online forums. This chapter critically analyzes a purposive sample of print media news coverage of this crime. Using an intersectional analysis, I examine how the perpetrators and the victim are depicted in light of their age, gender, and socioeconomic status. This coverage is compared to a sensational murder in Christchurch, New Zealand, to examine how very young girls who commit violent acts are treated in the media and the criminal justice system. The New Zealand case is used as a counterpoint to the idea that the Internet played a role in the Slender Man stabbings, leading me to ask what we are missing when we focus solely on the most sensational aspect of this case.
