Points to ponder

A point to ponder would be the complete lack of urgency shown by the girls after being arrested. Murder is probably about the most drastic measure a person can take. You either "need" to kill or "want" to kill. These girls claim they believed they needed to kill Peyton to appease slenderman, yet nothing in their interviews showed they were dismayed or apprehensive about failing what they "needed" to do. This is why it's my opinion that they wanted to kill. For whatever selfish reason, it was a base urge and not a delusional need.

I read a lot of true crime so it's not hard for me to believe that two young girls could possibly attempt a thrill kill and then try to blame it on a delusion. It happens. 15 y/o Alyssa Bustamante murdered her 9 y/o neighbor simply because she wanted to see how it felt to take a life. She wrote in her diary that it felt "ahmazing".

Richard McCroskey was a horrorcore fan that wrote on a message board that the way to get away with murder was to say that you heard the voice of god commanding you so that you could get off on insanity. Later, after he actually did kill four people and was asked why, he said Jesus told him to do it. Point is, there really are people out there naive enough to believe this will keep them out of trouble.

Alyssa Bustamante was into goth and cutting, McCroskey was into horrorcore, juggalos and macabre imagery, Morgan and Anissa were into dark videos, macabre stories and slenderman. It seems like a majority of young killers have dark obsessions. People point at these dark obsessions, self-identifying, and say "hey, I was into that too and I never killed anybody". Yeah, that's all fine and good but it doesn't lessen what the accused did either. I think people take this defensive stance because they feel something they identify with is being blamed for causing kids to murder. I don't think these dark obsessions cause kids to murder, just the opposite, I think kids who are inclined to murder are predisposed to dark obsessions.