Girl, 14, charged with attempted murder after trying to kill another teenager

Posted: Friday, November 6, 2009 5:55 pm

A 14-year-old girl who allegedly told police she tortures animals and is "fascinated by death" was charged Friday with attempted murder after police said she tried to kill another teenager living at her Fitchburg foster home.

Noa M. Jensen was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree intentional homicide for trying to stab a 16-year-old girl Wednesday afternoon at the home. Jensen is a Rock County resident who was placed in the foster home as a Child in Need of Protective Services, Assistant District Attorney Vanny Lu said in court Friday.

According to a criminal complaint, nobody was injured in the attack, which ended when a Fitchburg police officer arrived and twice threatened to use his Taser on Jensen if she did not put down a knife she was holding.

When the incident was over, the complaint states, Jensen told a police detective, "When I'm (angry), I don't think. All I think about is murder."

Jensen is being held on $10,000 bail at the Dane County Juvenile Reception Center, though an official from Rock County Human Services asked Court Commissioner Dan Floeter if it was possible to send her back to Rock County.

According to the complaint:

The 16-year-old girl told police that she confronted Jensen for telling others about a personal matter. Jensen denied it and they began to argue. Jensen said to her foster mother, "I should get a knife and kill (the girl)."

Jensen went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She lunged at the girl over a coffee table and tried to stab her. The girl kicked Jensen in the stomach, causing her to fall and drop the knife. Jensen grabbed a second knife from the kitchen and threw it at the girl. It hit her but did not cause any injuries.

The girl ran upstairs, locked herself in a bathroom and called 911. Jensen continued to yell that she was going to kill the girl in her sleep. She tried to follow the girl upstairs with a knife but struggled with her foster mother.

Speaking later with Detective Kenneth Folkers, Jensen said she still wanted to kill the girl.

"I swear to God, if I don't calm down, I will kill her tonight in her sleep," she said. And if her foster mother hadn't intervened, she said, "I would have killed her."

Jensen said that in the past, she had drugged the coffee of a former foster mother and had once walked up to her with a knife and thought about stabbing her to death.

She also talked about catching birds and killing them with a bat, strangling squirrels, pulling apart frogs and trying to hang a family dog because it was it was "babied" by family members.