Wisconsin judge declines to reduce bail for Slenderman case teens

By Brendan O'BrienWAUKESHA, Wis. (Reuters) - A Wisconsin judge on Friday declined to reduce bail for two teenage girls awaiting trial on charges of trying to kill their classmate by stabbing her repeatedly to please a fictional character named Slenderman.The girls, Anissa Weier, 14, and Morgan Geyser, 13, have been in custody since they were charged with attempted first-degree homicide in the May 2014 attack in Waukesha, a suburb of Milwaukee. All three girls were 12 years old at time.Waukesha District Court Judge Michael Bohren denied requests from the teenagers' attorneys to cut bail for each of them to $5,000 from $500,000, release them on bond and place them on electronic monitoring while they await trial in adult court."The $500,000 bail is certainly adequate and reasonable and appropriate based upon protection of the public, based on the risk of flight and ... based on the nature of the case," Bohren said at a hearing.Prosecutors have said the girls lured a classmate into the woods and stabbed her to impress Slenderman, a fictional supernatural Internet character depicted in stories as stalking and tormenting humans, especially children.The victim survived the attack.The trial has been indefinitely postponed while a state appeals court reviews a request to move the case to juvenile court. Last August, Bohren ordered the girls be tried as adults.Weier and Geyser could each be sentenced to up to 65 years in prison if convicted in the stabbing as adults. They could be held until the age of 25 if convicted as juveniles.(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Fiona Ortiz)Join the conversation about this story
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