St. Croix County girl allegedly attempted 'first kill' in savage attack on brother's girlfriend

Even before the sun came up, the teenager said, she had begun her 11-mile journey by bike, pedaling back roads to the New Richmond, Wis., trailer home where she planned to make her attack.

It was the fourth time in a week that the 14-year-old girl had made the trip, each time imagining how she would go about assaulting her brother's 15-year-old girlfriend.

That's what she told investigators, according to a St. Croix County, Wis., criminal complaint that charged the girl Thursday in adult court with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. She's accused of attacking the sleeping girl, beating her savagely before slashing her throat.

The defendant was being held without bail Friday in juvenile custody in Eau Claire, Wis., awaiting an Aug. 8 court appearance before Judge Eric Lundell. Her attorney didn't respond to inquiries seeking comment, nor did the mother of the victim.

The victim remained in Regions Hospital in St. Paul, said Chief Deputy Scott Knudson of the St. Croix County Sheriff's Office.

According to the complaint, the defendant told investigators that it was a little past dawn Wednesday when she hid her bike in some weeds and, dressed in a black hoodie, crept through an unlocked sliding glass door at the victim's trailer home. Anxious, she did breathing exercises in the living room for 10 minutes as the other girl slept.

Then she pulled on blue rubber gloves and jumped on the sleeping girl, punching her with a closed fist. She told investigators that she struck the girl's face and head 30 times, maybe more.

Sometime during the two-hour attack, the defendant described herself to the victim as crazy and a psychopath. She said this was her "first kill" and that she would kill again.

"Have a nice afterlife," the defendant allegedly told the semiconscious girl before leaving her begging for help.

According to the complaint, Deputy Nick Krueger went to the defendant's home in Star Prairie, where she said she had been assaulted by two unknown men wearing dark ski masks who were armed with a knife and drove a green pickup.

She told Krueger that the men had tried to abduct her and she had fought to get away. Finally, because "they wanted somebody," she said she told them that her brother's girlfriend was home alone in the trailer court near the public library in New Richmond.

When Deputy Marc Sommers arrived at the victim's house and opened the door, he heard her yelling for an ambulance. The girl, crumpled on her bedroom floor, was bleeding from her face and neck.

She became "very tired from all of the strikes to her face and believed that she was close to passing out," the complaint said.

The victim, "incredibly thirsty," asked the defendant for water and then a straw because she had trouble drinking from a glass.

According to the complaint, the defendant asked if she "wanted to die right now" or to "bleed out." When the victim said she preferred the latter, the defendant covered her with a blanket and left.

The complaint said that the defendant told Sheriff's Office investigators that she wanted to hurt the other girl "because her brother had depression and [the girl] made him happier than she."

The defendant's mother told investigators that the two girls "did not get along at all and there had been such an increase in tension in her home as a result of their interactions."

The defendant "explained the events in a calm, mostly unemotional manner," saying of the victim: "I hate her."