Girl, 12, Says 'Clown' Told Her To Kill Stepmom
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 12-year-old girl has told authorities that a fictional clown named "Laughing Jack" told her to kill her stepmother in July.
Court documents released this week in the case also show that the Elkhart, Ind., girl, who suffers from multiple personality disorder, pleaded with her father to get her treatment for her mental illness.
The girl stabbed her stepmother in July, months after begging for help.
"This little girl has been failed by everyone," Holly Curtis, the girl's public defender, told WSBT-TV in South Bend.
So far, 16 psychiatric facilities have refused to take her, court documents said.
Prosecutors say the girl set the family's apartment on fire and then stabbed her stepmother, Maria Torres.
According to court documents, the girl "heard voices" and said she committed the crime "the direction of a fictional character known as 'Laughing Jack.'"
Laughing Jack is a fictional, murderous clown, whose stories can be found on a website called Creepy Pasta.
The girl is currently being held at the Juvenile Detention Center in Goshen.
While being held at the center, court documents say she, "continues to beg detention staff for help."
"The risk level for her is beyond anything I think anybody can imagine," Curtis told WSBT. "For her not to be able to get the help she's crying out for is probably one of the biggest travesties I've seen so far with the systems and with a state agency not willing to step up and do their job."
