PORTLAND (AP) – A 16-year-old girl who stabbed a 20-year-old female friend was mentally ill and not criminally responsible for her actions, a judge ruled.

District Court Judge Peter Goranites ruled Monday after two expert witnesses testified that the girl believed that she and her friend would become angels if they died together. The girl had been charged with attempted murder.

The verdict would require that an adult be committed to a mental hospital until the court determines it’s safe for the person to return to society.

Because she’s a juvenile, however, the girl will no longer be under the supervision of the court or face time in a juvenile correction center because the Maine Juvenile Code doesn’t address a teen found to be mentally ill, prosecutors said.

“I think the Legislature needs to take a look at this … There is a hole,” said Goranites during the hearing at Portland District Court.

The girl, who was a student at Scarborough High School, and her friend went to the woods behind the town’s middle school, where the teen stabbed her friend in the back and neck before turning the knife on herself last March, police said. The two also injected themselves with a substance that contained rat poison, police said.

Scarborough Police Detective Ivan Ramsdell and two expert witnesses who met with the teenager described the incident as a likely suicide pact. The two were interested in witchcraft, Harry Potter books and werewolves.

“She just got swallowed up to point where she didn’t know what was real, and what wasn’t,” said Dr. Diane Schetcky, a psychiatrist who testified Monday.

Kring’s mother disputed the accounts of police and expert witnesses, saying her daughter was never suicidal and didn’t participate in a pact.

AP-ES-01-31-06 0819EST