A terrifying fictional character called SlenderMan is turning the Internet into a school for murder – spawning a deadly cult that’s molding vulnerable teens into potential killers, warn experts.
So far the chilling character – which many followers are convinced is real – has been linked to at least three bloody attacks, and an in-depth National ENQUIRER investigation has ripped the lid off the phenomenon which is sweeping schools across the country.
“SlenderMan is attracting a cult-like devotion,” cult expert Steve Hassan, author of the new book “Freedom of Mind,” told The ENQUIRER.
“This is turning kids into killers. They are being encouraged to fantasize violence – and actually do it!”
Slender Man is a tall, gothic cartoon figure dressed in a black suit. He has scrawny arms and legs, a blank white face and ominous tentacles sprouting threateningly from his back.
Incredibly, Google lists more than 58million “hits” for SlenderMan – and some fans have opted to follow in his footsteps: On May 31 in Waukesha, Wis., prosecutors say that two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weir, furiously attacked a friend in the woods near their home – stabbing her 19 times in a deluded attempt to become “proxies” (cult members) of SlenderMan and convince the world that he is real!
Fortunately, their victim survived and recently posted that she is recovering nicely.
Curt Kissinger, a juvenile court administrator in the county where the assault took place, told The ENQUIRER: “I find this very frightening – (SlenderMan) motivates children to kill people!”
In another horrifying incident, a 13-year-old, mentally disturbed Cincinnati girl, wearing a SlenderMan mask, attacked her mother with a knife on April 23, inflicting multiple wounds.
And crazed couple Jerad and Amanda Miller, who gunned down two Las Vegas policemen and a helpless shopper at a WalMart before killing themselves, posted photos of themselves on Facebook dressed as SlenderMan.
Parents should be “terribly frightened,” psychologist and author Dr. Judy Kuriansky, who has treated victims of cults, told The ENQUIRER. “Because SlenderMan has no face, kids can ‘become’ Slender Man. He is a mirror, and kids can project themselves into him.
“This is something we’ve never seen before – the emergence of a dangerous cult with a fictional leader!”
