Perhaps many of you have heard already, but this is a significant topic to be covered. Please remember all my information is tentative and based soley on a few news articles which will not be referenced in this post, and further research is at your diescretion.
On May 30th, 2014, a young girl of 12 years of age was apparently lured to a forest on the pretense of hanging out with two other girls of the same age, whose names have been publicly released, but will be withheld in this post. Therefore, we shall refer to them as A and B, and the victim as C.
A and B stated on the context that Slender Man would appear and they would apparently go to live in his "forest mansion". To do so, they brutally stabbed C 19 times and attempted to keep her from being found by anyone. Luckily for C, she was approached by a bicyclist who proceeded to call 911 and save her life. C is currently, from what I can find, in critical condition, but thankfully alive and still kicking.
A and B on the other hand, will be tried as adults and could face up to 60 years in prison time, meaning they would be released at the age of 72.
Our condolensces go out to the families of both the victim and A and B, who have been apparently very distraught over the situation (which is of course no surprise). As an admin of the Slender Man wiki, it felt only appropriate to address this head on and tell the community why this should be taken as a cautionary tale of going too far.
Slender Man does not want your ritual sacrifices. No part of the mythos lore has ever stated he lives in a "forest mansion", that he wants you to kill for him, or that you will become a proxy by killing for him. These things will not allow you to "see" the Slender Man. Additionally, we would like to remind everyone that Slender Man, while based on some lore, is mainly creepy horror stories. Every blog and Video series out there is entirely ficticious and is simply there for scary entertainment like a horror film. Stabbing a girl 19 times will not get you to see Slender Man, it will get your hands and legs bound in cuffs while you are lead to a bus. Said bus will then take you to where you will be living for years, maybe even decades, while you realize the reality of what you have actually done and the physical and emotional abuse you will suffer by the criminals surrounding you.
Slender Man is not a tool or a cop out story for you to use as a flimsy justification for murder, theft, violence, or any other crime. If you ever feel Slender Man is telling you to kill, or you see him in your dreams insisting you kill, we strongly suggest you immediately seek medical attention as not only this is purely insane, it is also completely impossible.
That said, I have already deleted two comments insinuating it is somehow our faults (the entire community) that this crime has taken place. While I do give my condolensces to the families as stated above, I think I can speak for many of us, including the other admins, that we ourselves do not take any responsibility for the crime itself and are in no way morally or legally tied to the situation. What has happened here is an unfortunate situation resulting from two young women who took this too far. Many individuals on this site have been here for months or years and have never had a problem with anything Slender Man related. Sure, many users create false posts and fictional blogs pretending to be having their own Slender Man adventure, but to the knowledge of the admin team, we are unable to determine who is and who isn't serious about what they type, and we also lack any legal ability and right to investigate into a persons life. If your child uses this website, please check their posts, their blogs, and any activity they use on this site. You may do so by clicking their username or IP address in the top right corner of the page and clicking Blog for blogs and Contributions for posts, edits, and so forth. Such as Catcher in the Rye convinced a man to kill another, and Doom supposedly inspired a shooting, Slender Man is, himself, a victim in this as well. The mythos isn't responsible for who lets their children use this website, and we have clearly stated in our ToS, as has wikia in their ToU, that we do not allow users under the age of 13 to utilize the website, but we also have no direct ability to discern anyones age whatsoever unless said user states their age.
If you are a parent who is worried about the potential for Slender Man to scare their child, cause their child to act out, or worried that their child could try to "become a proxy", I strongly urge you to block this wiki's url from your browser and disallow your child any and all access to this site altogether. We all love a good scare, but any real violence is not funny.
I appreciate you taking the time to fully read this post through, and do you hope that you can have a good day.
ADDENDUM:
As expected people are coming to the wiki and insulting users, the mythos, and attacking the wiki demanding it be shut down.
This wiki has no intention whatsoever to shut itself down. The Slender Man Wiki, the Creepypasta Wiki, any wiki's that host Slender Man information have been given no requirement to shut down, and I know I will not shut it down due to this incident.
Victor Surge will not be arrested. He had nothing to do with the stabbings, and authors cannot be held responsible for people taking their writing too far and killing. He has done nothing wrong, and will be just fine.
Also, this wiki's rules did not get shut down. I would like to remind everyone that religious references, stating Slender Man is fake, and all other ToS rules are still in effect and will be enforced. We didn't lost them due to this. The only thread that is an exception to the Fake rule is this one.
Finally, comments insulting the wiki, calling people here sick, demanding the wiki be shut down, or anything directly negative against the wiki are still against the rules, and will be deleted.
ADDENDUM: I am happy to report that the victim, whose name has been withheld from the public, appears to have nearly fully recovered from the attack, and is on her way home. We here at the Slender Man Wiki sincerely hope that she will be able to move on from this incident, both physically and mentally. Incidents like this can leave lasting emotional scars, and for good reason, so, while there is a good chance she nor her family is reading this, we do deeply wish for a full recovery, and that nothing like this would ever happen to you or anyone ever again. We do fully promise Slender Man has never been intended to be an icon of murder. His intention is to be scary. The goal of Slender Man is to escape him, run away, not see him, fear his presence. Slender Man has never been an icon for murder or killing, and no major Slender Man series ever depict him as that. He is a scary monster, like Freddy Krueger, the aliens from the Alien franchise, a monster from Silent Hill, or even Kayako from The Grudge. That's all. We aren't releasing these statements for good PR, we legitimately do feel bad this situation came to pass, and even though none of us bear any connection to your situation, we still want to let you and others know that this isn't what Slender Man is, and shouldn't be.
A speedy recovery to the poor girl, and hopes that getting the hard part out of the way now can be smooth sailings and years up in the hundreds.