The 12-year-old girl who was allegedly stabbed 19 times by two of her middle school classmates is “improving each and every day,” her parents said Thursday.
The Wisconsin girl was assaulted Saturday morning in a Waukesha park. Police said the suspects, two other 12-year-old girls, left her to die after they attacked her with a knife.
“Our little girl is a fighter,” the victim’s parents said in a statement. The family is asking that the child’s identity be withheld for privacy.
On Wednesday, the girl’s condition was upgrade to stable after she spent several days listed in critical but stable condition, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. One of the middle schooler’s wounds was just a millimeter away from a major heart artery.
Police said the girl’s classmates, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, attacked her during a game of hide-and-seek Saturday. The accused 12-year-olds said they wanted to kill their friend in order to please Slenderman, a fictional creature they read about in online horror stories.
The two girls told police they had been planning the attack for months because they wanted to become “proxies” of the demon-like figure.
Slenderman’s creator released a statement about the attack Wednesday.
“I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin, and my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this terrible act,” Eric Knudsen wrote.
Knudsen posted Photoshopped images of Slenderman online in 2009, inspiring other writers and artists to create their own stories and artwork based on the fictional creature.
Knudsen works as a website administrator for Creepypasta.wikia.com, a site that publishes short, scary stories.
That’s the same website that Geyser and Weier claimed to have first learned about the Slenderman legend.
Geyser and Weier have been charged as adults with attempted first-degree murder. If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.
The girls’ middle school principal, Mark Wegner, said the accused 12-year-olds are good students with clean records, NBC Chicago reported.
The victim’s family has established an online campaign asking supporters to send their daughter purple hearts made out of paper and fabric. They said they hope to decorate the girl’s room with the hearts to remind her that she is loved.
