SLENDERMAN

Slenderman, in his black mortician’s suit, is a ghostly figure with extremely thin arms and legs and 4-8 tentacles protruding from his back. His pale face has no discernable features. His arms stretch out to lure children to him where he absorbs them.

Slenderman was first seen online in the summer of 2009 in two vague pictures that were passed around in horror sites and forums. The artist, Victor Surge “created paranormal images” through Photoshop. The artist created the two images that began the whole Slenderman mythology. Once his images hit the internet, others added to the myth, and finally, it arrived in the computers of two little girls who took it as far as attempted murder.

The first photo was dated 1983. In it a hoard of young teenagers burst out of the woods toward the camera. The second photo was of a playground full of 6-7 aged little girls. In a cluster of trees, a tale pale figure is seen with the children gathered around him. It was said that 14 children vanished at the time the picture was taken. Every myth needs a measure of danger to it.

This all would have been chalked up as just a “fun” story until two 12-year-olds in Wisconsin

led their friend into the woods to play a game of hide and seek and then, at the behest of Slenderman, tried to kill her.

The tragedy centers around three little 12-year-old girls: Morgan Geyser, Anissa Weier, and their friend Payton Leutner, a.k.a. Bella.  The three were drawn to each other by their mutual loneliness. They shared the fantasy world that revolved around Slenderman.

The girls got together on that Friday night to celebrate Morgan’s birthday by going skating and then having a sleepover. The three little girls were not popular at their middle school. They were obsessed with video games and making up scary stories. Morgan was a “creative weirdo” whose only real friend seemed to be Anissa, and Morgan seemed to be Anissa’s only friend.

When the girls were done skating, they returned to Morgan’s house and went to sleep. When they got up the next morning, they role played that one was a Star Trek android, Seven of Nine and one a troll princess. It’s doesn’t seem sure how Bella fit into this game. The three then walked to the park near Morgan’s house, with Bella taking the lead. Morgan showed Anissa a steak knife she had taken from the kitchen. The two girls had been planning this attack on their friend for weeks. The three went to the swings when Anissa suggested they play hide and seek in the woods. When they got to the woods, Morgan and Anissa, on Anissa’s cue, stabbed Bella 19 times in the chest. Bella, still alive, was taken further into the woods where the other two ordered the frightened little girl to lie down on the ground.

Morgan and Anissa, later, would say they had planned to go get their friend help, but, instead, left her to bleed to death alone in the woods. Luckily for Bella, she did not die. She crawled out of the woods and was rescued by a passing bicyclist.

Now you must be wondering what all this has to do with Slenderman…well, that connection was revealed five hours later when Anissa and Morgan are arrested. They both claimed that Slenderman told them to kill their friend and they wanted to please him.  When they were arrested, they were heading into the Nicolet National Forest to look for Slenderman.

Once they were placed in juvenile hall, Morgan descended more and more into her mental illness and talked constantly to Slenderman. She claimed to see unicorns and treated the ants in her cell as if they were her pets. She was eventually moved to a mental facility where she was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia, which is actually very rare.

In December 2014, Morgan was deemed competent to stand trial. She eventually plea bargained to be committed to a mental hospital indefinitely.

In the same year, Anissa was sentenced to 25 years in a mental institution, when she plead guilty to the attempted murder of her friend Bella. "I want everyone involved to know I deeply regret everything that happened that day," Weir said. "I know nothing I say is going to make this right, nothing I say is going to fix what I broke."

So, what lesson can we learn from this tale? At 12, children can’t handle the kind of things that come to them through the internet. They need to be monitored closely, perhaps having the computer in a family area and not in their rooms.

Myths like Slenderman can be fun for the people who create them and watch how they catch on fire on the internet, but there was nothing fun in the tale of three little 12-year-olds who believed that Slenderman was real and nearly killed one of them to please him.

BELLE GUNNESS

(1859-1930)

BELLE GUNNESS

(1859-1930)

A woman alone in the world has to find a way to take care of herself. In the late 19^th century, a woman named Belle Gunness found a foolproof way to support herself by marrying well and killing often.

Bell Gunness was born Brynhild Paulschatter in 1859 in Norway and immigrated to America in 1881. There are conflicting stories of Belle’s childhood. One source said she was raised in poverty and had to take jobs farming to raise the money for the trip to the US. Another said her father, Peter Paulsen was a traveling conjurer and magician and that Belle danced the high wire. But we do know that suspicious deaths and fires soon followed her arrival. At six feet and 200 pounds, Belle had no trouble attracting a husband.

Within three years, Belle was married to Albert Sorenson. The two ran a candy store in Chicago and had two children; both infants died and now are feared to have been two of Belle’s first little victims. One thing that Belle made sure of was that her husbands had plenty of life insurance…a girl has to protect herself against the fickle fates. Not only did she make sure there was insurance on her husband but her home and store, too. Both of these conveniently burned down, and Belle and Albert collected the insurance and bought a new home. But Belle was not much of a sharer and her husband fell ill and died. The curious thing was that he happened to die on the day two different life insurance policies overlapped…she collected double. Smart girl.  She used the insurance money to buy a farm.

More suspicious deaths followed. She next married Peter Gunness, a widower with an infant daughter. This child died soon after the nuptials; like I said, she doesn’t share well.  After this death, Peter sent his other child, Swanheld, to stay with relatives, thus probably saving her life.

Peter was a butcher, and one day a meat grinder fell off a shelf and killed him. Think about that. The meat grinder falling off a shelf is certainly not that suspicious, but the fact that Peter was under the shelf, to me, is. Taking a nap, perhaps?

The real story is more like what Gunness’s daughter was heard to tell her schoolmates, “My mama killed my Papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don’t tell a soul.” Now that I believe.

Next, let’s meet Mads Sorenson, Belle’s next husband.  With this husband, Belle had four children, Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy, along with a foster child, Jennie Olsen.  I guess at this point, Belle didn’t mind sharing the attention with children. But maybe, not. Caroline and Axel died of acute colitis whose symptoms match those of strychnine poison. Mads fell ill and died soon after. The first doctor said it was poison, but the family doctor said heart failure. And that assessment stood.  

Belle’s next idea was to post in lovelorn columns in the newspapers to bring wealthy men to the farm. When they arrived, she would tell them she needed money to pay off the mortgage on the farm. The men would then get this money for her and would never be seen again. As you can see from the photos here, Belle was not an extremely attractive woman, but she must have had some appeal or these men would not have been so easily swayed to pay the mortgage of a woman they barely knew. The following is a list of some of the men who responded to Belle’s ad and who were never seen or heard from again, but it is certainly not a complete list:

·         John Moo

·         Henry Gyrholdt

·         Olaf Sverherus

·         B. Budsbury

·         Olaf Lindblom

·         Andrew Hegelein

In 1908, Andrew Hegelein’s family became suspicious when they heard nothing from Harold. Their inquiries got the authorities to come to the farm to investigate. This began the excavation of the property and the uncovering of the many murders of Belle Gunness.

                At some point, the farmhouse itself burned down and four skeletons were found. When all was said and done, 40 men and children’s remains were found including those of the foster child Jennie and Belle’s children Lucy, 9; Myrtle, 11; and Phillip Gunness, 5. It is believed that Belle killed these men and children, dismembered them and fed them to the pigs.

Belle disappeared. Maybe. There was a headless female found in the fire and a set of metal bridgework that could be identified as Belle’s, making the police believe that Belle had been caught in her own fire. But here’s the problem with that conclusion. This was Belle’s house. Of course, you would expect to find her bridgework there, but not always in her mouth.  Belle seems like a woman who might save her teeth for a special occasion, like the arrival of a new man from the lovelorn ad. So, it is possible that although the bridge was hers; the headless body was not.

               Let’s now take a look at another player at Belle’s ranch, hired hand, RayLampshere. With Belle assumed dead in the fire, on May 22, 1908, Ray was arrested for the arson and the murders. It turns out he is the one who knew all of Belle’s crimes, and now that he was being charged with them, he was willing to talk. He claimed she was not one of the victims of the fire. She had planned it all. She went to Chicago and found a housekeeper and brought her back to the farm. This woman was the headless corpse found in the fire. The interesting thing was that this woman was nowhere near six feet, as Belle was, but she was identified as Belle anyway. Belle, in the meantime, had cleared out all the bank accounts, set fire to the house and farm and moved on.

                In 2007, forensic anthropologist Stephen Hawrocki and some of his grad students started to investigate the alleged death of Belle Gunness. The first step was having the body exhumed from Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, that had been assumed was Belle’s. What was found was that the alleged Belle’s bones were intermingled with those of the children. It had always been believed that the children were buried separately. So, they next exhumed what was in the graves of Lucy, Myrtle, and Phillip.  All this digging of bones never gave any real results.

                Many sightings of Belle went on for years, but the most promising was a woman named Edith Carlson, who seemed to resemble Belle. But she died in Los Angeles as she awaited trial for murder.

                So, ended the story of Belle Gunness, who spent most of her adult life wreaking havoc in the lives of all who crossed her path.

               

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Marybeth Tinning

In 1971, Marybeth’s eight-day-old baby, Jennifer, died of spinal meningitis which began a journey of death for the following eight babies born to Marybeth. When her first child died, Marybeth was the object of great pity. Who is a sadder sight than a mother who has lost her child?

 After Marybeth lost Jennifer, she collected herself and focused on her two remaining children. But less than a month later, Marybeth returned to the hospital; this time with her son Joseph Jr. Marybeth said he had had a seizure. He was released to the loving arms of his mother, but just a few hours later, she returned to the hospital with a lifeless Joseph Jr., claiming she found him dead in his crib. A few weeks later, it was her daughter Barbara’s turn to be taken to the hospital with convulsions. She died the next day, making Marybeth childless.

Marybeth continued to have more children. A month after he was born, her son Timothy died of seizures, just like his brother Joseph Jr. He was followed by Nathan, Mary Frances, Jonathan, and her adopted child, Michael. Why did no one see a pattern here and stop her?

Her ninth child, Tami Lynn, was born in August 1985. She was no luckier than her prior

siblings. But after her death, the authorities became suspicious. I guess nine deaths was her limit. When she was questioned, Marybeth immediately confessed to suffocating Timothy, Nathan, and Tami Lynn. One must wonder if the lives of innocent children could have been saved if Marybeth had been questioned earlier.

Because of lack of evidence, Marybeth was only tried for Tami Lynn’s death, receiving 20 years to life. All her requests for parole have been denied.

Dee Dee Blancharde

This story is a little different. In this one, the victim survived to her teens, and she found a way to get out of the hell that is Munchausen by Proxy…she killed her mother.

Just like the other mothers we have been exploring, Dee Dee loved the attention she received as the mother of a very sick child. She convinced the world and her daughter Gypsy Rose that she was fatally ill by feeding Gypsy seizure medication, shaving her tiny head, and confining the growing child to a wheelchair for years, so that Gypsy would appear ill.

Rod Blanchard, Daisy’s father says the abuse started as an infant when Dee Dee told him that their daughter needed a breathing machine and was probably not going to live until she was 18. He didn’t really ask for any details and divorced Dee Dee in 1991. In many ways, he just abandoned her to her mother’s whims.

Dee Dee shaved her daughter’s head to convince people that she had cancer and forced a doctor to give her daughter a painful feeding tube. The insertion of a feeding tube seems to also be a staple of the Munchausen mother. My issues are the lack of testing on the part of the medical community. How does a mother “insist” on a feeding tube and just get it.  She even lied to her daughter about how old she was. An aging victim is not what the people what to see and Gypsy was Dee Dee’s cash cow, and it would not do to have her grow up.

For most of her life, Gypsy never went out of the house unless she was in her wheelchair, even though she knew she could walk. She did it in the confines of her home all the time.  Allowing anyone to see her walking would bring down her mother’s carefully crafted con.

In 2011, Gypsy had her first taste of freedom when she escaped to track down an older man she had met at a sci-fi convention. But her mother tracked her down in Arkansas and dragged her home saying, “"If you ever try to do that again, I'm going to smash your fingers with a hammer."

            Gypsy’s access to the outside world was limited to the internet; how could that go wrong? In a Christian dating site, Gypsy met Nicholas Godejohn, and soon he was her “boyfriend.” This relationship and how Gypsy managed it showed that she had learned her lessons in manipulation well from her mother. Nicholas had his own issues with mental health and the police.

Nicholas claimed to have multiple personalities and insisted Gypsy create multiple personalities for herself to match his. There was Kitty the little girl, and Ruby, the evil vixen. She would send him photos of her in various costumes for each persona. This allowed Gypsy to explore her sexuality and start to develop feelings more suited to her actual age, not the little girl she was forced to play.

            Soon, Gypsy wants her adult life to be more than just a fantasy, but she knew that nothing could happen unless her mother was gone. So, the conversation with Nicholas eventually got around to how they could kill her mother.

            The plot took wings and eventually, Nicholas was at Dee Dee’s house and Gypsy was hiding in the bathroom hearing her mother scream, “Help me! Help me!”

            They fled the scene and eventually ended up at Nicholas’ parent's house in Wisconsin. Both are arrested. Nicholas has yet to go to trial, but Dee Dee resides now in what she calls a better place.

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Munchhausen by Proxy : Part 1

Lisa Hayden-Johnson

Lisa’s son was born prematurely, so he needed feeding tubes and constant medical attention. His mother Lisa loved the attention she got as the mother of an ill child. This is one of the aspects of Munchausen by Proxy, a condition where the parent, usually the mother, makes a child sick to gain attention and often monetary gain. The greatest fear of these mothers is that their child will get well.

When Lisa’s son began to get better, she decided to try convincing everyone that her child was still deathly ill. She went on television and told everyone that her son had severe food allergies; therefore, he was unable to eat and had to have a feeding tube inserted. To convince people her son had diabetes, she would put glucose in his urine. She said he also had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis which confined him to a wheelchair. She was so convincing that she not only had her son convinced he was sick, but she also had the doctor’s convinced, which lead to 325 operations and invasive medical procedures. She also claimed her son was sensitive to sunlight, so she made him wear sunglasses and a hat to school. The hat was always in bright colors because she wanted him to be able to be readily seen and rescued in case anything happened at school. It wouldn’t do to have the source of all her attention and money to get truly injured in any way and taken to a hospital where she would not be in control of how her son was looked at.

This is where I get confused with any story of Munchausen by Proxy story. How were these women able to convince medical professionals that their child had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis? Don’t these conditions require tests to help with such a diagnosis?

The attention Lisa received was wide-spread. From donations, she got a new car, cash, and a free cruise. She was also able to receive disability payments for her son, which was probably not her main motivation, but it allowed her to not have to work and to be able to monitor who her son encountered. It would not do to have someone get too close to him and become suspicious.

After much lobbying by his mother, her son received a Children of Courage award and met both Tony Blair and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Her son was considered “the sickest child in Britain.” For a sick kid, her son got around. When she was finally caught, the police found a video tape of that free cruise. In it, the boy was seen running around the pool and eating all regular food. It’s amazing what the sea air can do.

Soon her very carefully crafted con came tumbling down when, in 2007, a pediatrician became suspicious of the fact that there did not seem to be a clear diagnosis, so he examined all the boy’s medical files. He demanded further tests on her son. To postpone these tests, on the day they were to be performed, Lisa claimed she had been sexually assaulted. While speaking to the police about the assault, she eventually confessed to the entire scheme.Her plan backfired. 

Prosecutor Andrew Macfarlane said, 'The defendant organized, orchestrated and ensured a regime of medical, physiological and psychological mistreatment, amounting to 24-hour-a-day torture that touched on every aspect of his young vulnerable life.” Lisa received 39 months in prison and her son went to live with his father and is said to be a happy and healthy little boy. This is another aspect of Munchausen; when the children are not with their mothers, they seem to miraculously recover, as if nothing was wrong with them in the first place.

Kathy Bush

           

Jennifer Bush’s life was hell right from the beginning, with 40 medical procedures and 200 hospitalizations before the age of eight. Because of her weak immune system, she had to have her appendix, gallbladder, and small intestine removed.  Like Lisa Hayden-Johnson’s son, Jennifer Bush’s mother made sure anyone who would listen knew how sick her child was and how poor the family was because of it. The perks of all of this were many.

            Jennifer became a poster child for health reform and met Hilary Rodham Clinton at the White House; she even testified before Congress about these reforms. The nurses who tended Jennifer were confused by the letters written to the Clintons since Jennifer never went to school and her writing was on the kindergarten level.

            Kathy told the media that her family was penniless and wrote to the White House that sometimes they had to decide between medicine for Jennifer and food for the family. The family would also have financial problems because their health insurance dropped them when Jennifer began to have medical issues.

            The problem with this image of the destitute family was that at home there was a new Mustang and motorcycle in the driveway and the family was taking vacations at expensive resorts. It seems the cash she solicited was not going to either food or medicine.

            Meanwhile, nurses were beginning to talk. Often Jennifer seemed to be getting better until her mother arrived and drew the curtain to be alone with her daughter. Nurses often heard Jennifer saying “no, no” when alone with her mother. One nurse even saw Kathy squirting liquid into her daughter’s mouth. Jennifer's numerous baffling infections were "consistent with someone smearing fecal matter" into her feeding line and urinary catheter.

            Finally, in 1996, a nurse filed a complaint, and Kathy Bush was charged with fraudulently soliciting money and assault. Jennifer was transferred to another hospital and within a short time, she was eating and had her feeding tube removed. She was put into foster care and her health improved dramatically.

            In 1999, Kathy was convicted of aggravated child abuse. She served three years of a five-year sentence. She was also forbidden from having contact with her daughter.

            When Jennifer was 18, she petitioned the court to lift the ban on her seeing her mother. Jennifer now says she believes that her mother did not harm her at all.

In a written statement to the Sun Sentinel in early 2015, Jennifer wrote:

The 10 years I spent in foster care were traumatic, and I had some devastating things happen to me. [ . . . ] Today, I can proudly say we have flourished despite the devastating separation. The bond I had with my brothers, prior to being removed from my family, is something that never changed. My relationship with them helped carry me through my years in foster care. My parents and I have picked up from where we left off, and have a very close and loving relationship.

Lacy Spears

Garnet Spears spent his first five years on this earth suffering from numerous digestive issues. They were so severe that finally a feeding tube was inserted into his little body. His mother, Lacy Spears, was a former nursing student who used social media to document Garnet’s journey through doctor visits and hospital stays. Often, Munchausen by Proxy mothers have some medical knowledge. Like what often happens, the people in the social media rallied around her and Garnet.

In January 2014, Garnet was again admitted to the hospital; this time his sodium levels were sky high. At this point, the hospital became suspicious and called the police and Child Protective Services. As this little boy was in tremendous pain and slowly dying, his mother was not holding his hand and trying to soothe him; she was on Facebook and her own blog updating people on the boy’s condition and receiving the sympathy of her readers. There were videos that showed that Garnet was screaming in pain before the machines were finally turned off. On the 22^nd of January, Garnet was declared brain dead and his mother had the life support turned off.

The police searched Lacy and Garnet’s home and found sea salt and two feeding bags that

tested positive for sodium. Lucy was arrested and charged with manslaughter and second-degree murder. It is said she called a neighbor and asked her to get rid of the feeding bags, which had 69 packages of salt in it.  

During her 2-week trial, the prosecutor said that her treatment of her son was “nothing short of torture.” The defense blamed the hospital for the sodium poisoning. She was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years. The judge said she suffered from Munchausen’s by proxy and made her son sick just to bask in the attention the mother of a sick child gets.

Blanca Montano

It is February 2011 when Blanca Montano rushed her two children to the hospital. It was determined that they both had E. coli. Luckily her son was able to be treated and released, but her 5-month-old daughter was not so lucky.

She was transferred to intensive care but continued to get one infection after another. The medical staff was confused as to the cause of these rare and unusual infections. They began to suspect that Blanca was tampering with her daughter’s IV, introducing things like fecal matter. As the doctors were trying to treat the infections, Blanca was insisting on a bone marrow biopsy.  

Cameras were mounted in the child’s room and caught Blanca playing with the IV and covering the camera. The hospital felt they had enough evidence and brought in the police. Blanca was arrested and charged with one count of child abuse and forbidden to visit her daughter. The child slowing recovered and was released.Are you seeing a pattern here?

During her trial, the prosecutors said she had done this to gain attention and get back the affection of the children’s father.  Nurses testified that syringes had been found in Blanca’s purse and that she said she was surprised people hadn’t called CPS before. Blanca was found guilty and sentenced to 13 years in prison. She continues to maintain she is innocent.