A 14-year-old Florida girl was arrested Thursday after setting her family's home on fire while her mother and brother were asleep inside.
Lily Marie Hartwell told police that she was influenced by the anime book series "Soul Eater" and the Creepypasta character "Slender Man" when she committed the crime.
According to the Pasco Sheriff's Office, the Chasco Middle School seventh grader soaked a towel and bed sheet in bleach and rum, and set them on fire in the Port Richey garage around 1:45 a.m. She then ran to a nearby park with clothes, cookies, bottled water, knives, flashlights, and lighters, and slept in the bathroom.
The girl's mother and nine-year-old brother were awakened by the smell of smoke, and escaped the fire unharmed. At one point, Hartwell's mother ran back inside the home to look for her daughter. The home and a vehicle in the driveway were destroyed.
While she was hiding in the park, Hartwell texted her mother: "Mom, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I did it. Did any of you get hurt?"
Police found the girl at the park, and took her into custody. Hartwell admitted to the arson, and revealed the motive for her crime.
"She also expressed that even though she had already done it, she would come back and do it again," Sheriff Chris Nocco told reporters.
Hartwell had been fighting with her mother, and a portion of "Soul Eater" resonated with her.
"There's a part in this book where two characters get into a fight with each other," Nocco said. "All of a sudden, that clicked something in her mind and she decided she was going to kill her family."
According to the Anime News Network, "Soul Eater" is a comic about a "death god in training," who captures souls. Hartwell had also been reading Slender Man stories on horror wiki Creepypasta.
"She had visited the website that contains a lot of the Slender Man information and stories," Pasco Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Eddie Daniels told ABC News. "It would be safe to say there is a connection to that." Hartwell was charged with arson and two counts of attempted murder.
The Slender Man character also influenced the June stabbing of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin. Two other 12-year-olds – Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier – stabbed their classmate 19 times in homage of to him.
