LEWISTON — The father of an 11-year-old Auburn girl told police she said someone told her to stab him, according to an affidavit filed in Lewiston District Court.

The girl’s father, who was stabbed in the chest and the abdomen at his home on the morning of Jan. 13, is recovering from his wounds.

The girl has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Her father told police his daughter had been conversing with a man in his 20s online. The man had tried to lure the girl to a motel, according to the police statement.

When the father learned of the relationship, he told the man her age and to stop contacting his daughter.

The father said his daughter had asked to use his cellphone shortly before blindfolding him with the promise of a surprise from her and her mother. She made sure the blindfold was secure and began speaking in French as though she was narrating the event and recording it, giving her name and the date and saying she was giving her dad a surprise, according to the affidavit.

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She left the room briefly before returning. Her father said it was then that he felt a stabbing pain that caused him to fall backward. As he tried to get up, he said he was stabbed a second time. He swung his arm, managing to knock the knife away, cutting his hand in the process.

The girl had gone into the kitchen and retrieved a second knife. He said he had to fight her off and screamed to the apartment building’s neighbors: “Help me! My daughter is trying to kill me!” the police statement said.

At that moment, a postal carrier came to the door. After telling the carrier he was dying, she called 911.

The father told police he had been having difficulties with parenting his daughter. She had been accessing social media “at an unhealthy rate,” he said, according to the affidavit. It was affecting her schooling, he told police. He said he’d been trying to get her social media use under control.

He said he and his wife had used physical force at home, including slapping the girl and spanking her, but said it hadn’t worked.

His daughter had reacted to removal of digital devices by yelling and screaming, he said. Police had been called to the home several times before, including once when the girl allegedly had stolen money from her mother to buy a cellphone.

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Her father told police that his daughter had searched online recently how to become a celebrity or famous. She had “found a link to something about selling your body/soul to the ‘Demon’ or the devil and listed steps on how to do this and how to become famous for killing your parents,” according to the affidavit.

The father said he found some burnt paper on a plate under a bed. He asked his daughter about it. He learned that she had written the names of her parents on the piece of paper, burned it, then placed it under the bed.

During a recent intervention for his daughter, he said the girl told them she “lays awake at night with voices telling her to kill her family,” according to the affidavit.

When the girl was at the hospital Jan. 13 being treated for a cut on her hand that police said was consistent with her hand slipping when it made impact, she was overheard by an officer telling hospital staff about the incident. She told them that she had been sleeping when she heard her father yelling. She said she woke up and went to her father where he was lying down with a knife in him. She said she pulled the knife out of him and he yelled, “Why are you trying to kill me?”

At a court hearing Friday, the girl’s aunt said she told her she didn’t remember anything about the event.

A judge last week ordered a competency evaluation for the girl and had her held at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland until her next court appearance in February.

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