When 12 year old Payton Leutner excitedly pepped her overnight bag for the birthday sleepover with her bestir Morgan Geyser and their mutual friend Anissa Weier, she could never have imagined the immense pain, torture and anguish she would be put through.  The anguish associated with six months of planning by her best friends to end her life.

The year was 2014 and the three pre-teens Payton, Morgan and Anissa were getting used to a three-pronged friendship as, for the couple of years previous, Payton and Morgan were just the two of them.  In fact, not long before that, Payton was on her own, without a friend to call ‘best’.  However, she befriended a lost-looking Morgan who was struggling to make friends.  Payton was like this; friendly, welcoming, making other feel wanted.  After this, the two were inseparable, always together, the best of friends.

At the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, a third girl entered the picture.  Anissa.  She was the third wheel in the already perfect friendship group.  Anissa became closer to Morgan than Payton.  This closeness was very soon to turn to horror and a lifetime of pain for all three.

Morgan and Anissa became fixated with an online community known as CreepyPasta.  This was a collection of user-generated horror stories.  In particular, they were obsessed with the legend of Slenderman.  This fictional character was similar to any horror-based character in any other horror movie or horror story.  Slenderman was tall, overbearing, hostly, had tentacles, a man without a face.  Legend had it that he would follow children into dark forest at night, haunt them and hunt them.  In contrast with other horror movies where the story would end at the film finale, CreepyPasta horror tales would be embellished and added to by the thousands of fans who followed it.  According to CreepyPasta lore, Slenderman would use proxies to do his bidding.  A proxy was a person who Slenderman would use to kill instead of getting his own hands dirty.  According to the CreepyPasta Wiki page ‘Proxies are little more than slaves’.

Both Morgan and Anissa became obsessed with becoming Slenderman’s proxies.  They truly believe they needed to take another’s life in order to be accepted by Slenderman.  Tragically, that sacrificial person would be their very own best friend Payton.

Morgan began months of planning with Anissa.  They did this in secret and even developed code words so they could do so without suspicion.

On 16th May 2014, Morgan turned 12 years old.  Exactly two weeks later, 30th May, the time had come.  Morgan arranged a birthday sleepover, inviting both Payton and Anissa.  Payton had no idea of the horrors that awaited her.

As the three of went to bed that night, Morgan set her alarm for 2am.  She and Anissa had agree that would be the moment they would commit the deed.  They would stab Payton to death and then cover her body with her blanket before going back to sleep.  One does wonder how they planned to explain away Payton’s dead body to Morgan’s parents in the morning.  However, as the 2am bell tolled, Morgan awoke and drowsily whispered out to Anissa, who in turn drowsily moaned back at her friend for waking her in the middle of the night.The two girls drifted back off to sleep, plan aborted.  Whether they knew the horrors and anguish which they would cause the next morning is a mystery.

Payton awoke in the morning unaware of the events of the night and blissfully unaware of the fate which awaited her that day.

The three girls took a walk out to the nearby David’s Park.  Morgan and Anissa had hatched a new plan.  Poor Payton tagged a long while her two best friends talked in code about how and where to kill her.  They decided upon a public bathroom within the park. It was perfect.  If they could lure Payton into one of the cubicles, they could kill her before sitting her on the toilet, locking the door and crawling out underneath.  The perfect plan.  Hang on though – where would they blood drain away?  Yeah, good plan, but flawed.

Leaving the bathroom, they took a short walk to the woods.  Now they would play a game of hide n’ seek.  Well, Payton wasn’t keen.  She reluctantly went along with it.  While she was hiding, the only thing her two friends were doing was plotting her demise.  Anissa wondered if they should put the plan off, maybe give Payton one last morning, just the three of them playing like they used to before everything would change.  This level of awareness surely shows the wasn’t desperate to kill her friend, but, as the later stated, it was something they needed to do rather than wanted to do.  Morgan, though, was growing concerned about the difficulty it would be to commit the act of killing her friend, given the already two failed plans.

Anissa jumped on Payton and pinned her to the ground.  She thought it may be easier to stab her if she held her down.  Morgan still wasn’t sure.  She told Anissa she needed to know she was on board and wouldn’t do anything until she told her to.  Anissa nodded her head and said:

“Go crazy.  Go ballistic”

True to her word, Morgan whipped the 5 inch blade from her backpack and ‘went ballistic’, stabbing Payton a total of 19 times.  Morgan and her accomplice Anissa stepped back, looked at their dying friend and chillingly told her to close her eyes, go to sleep and that they would send help.  Indeed they had no intention of sending anybody.  Did this show a level of cold-bloodedness and lack of remorse? They simply walked away.  Afterall, they had a mission to complete.  Killing Payton was step one, but now they had to reach the Slender Mansion which was located some 200km away in the Nicolet Park.

Meanwhile, Payton, struggling for breath, called out for help.  She was dep in the woods though.  Nobody would hear her.  Bravely crawling, while being in the worst pain imaginable, Payton managed to find daylight as she reached the park’s edge.  An angel appeared out of nowhere in the form of a passing cyclist.  The man dropped his bicycle and ran to help the young girl.

As the cyclist called the emergency services and flagged down the police car, Payton was subsequently rushed to hospital where surgeons faced a race against time to save the young girl.  It was later said Payton was the width of a hair away from losing her life.

Meanwhile, the hunt was on for the two young fugitives.  In Payton’s stricken state she had laid blame squarely with her two friends.  We’ll use the term ‘friends’ extremely loosely.

A SWAT team arrived at the Geyser house in search of Morgan whose mother was simply told that her daughter was missing and that one of the girls had been hurt, but not told which one.

Lttle did the search squad know but the two girls were on their way to the Slender Mansion up in the Nicolet Park.  However, fortunately for all concerned, their progress was slowed considerably as Anissa had a meltdown in light of what they had done.

A passing motorist spotted them by the side of the road and reported to police who soon came by to pick them up.  Both girls were taken and interviewed separately as police officers attempted to gain a sense of what happened and how on earth it happened.

The first thing to note is that neither child had an adult or parent with them when being interviewed.  This was apparently completely legal in the State of Wisconsin, something that, despite the horrific nature of the crime, should never have been allowed to happen.

The two interviews differed greatly.  On the one hand you had Morgan who appeared very matter-of-fact in her responses.  When asked why she did what she did she stated:

“It needed to happen”

Nothing about being sorry or even that she wanted to kill her friend.  This appeared to back up what she said about doing it on behalf of Slenderman.  All her answers to questions were distant and cold.  Her overall behaviour was bizarre and showed a detachment from the act she had committed.

Contrastingly, Anissa was much more in tune with what they’d done and appeared more concerned with the severity of the act they committed.

Following these interviews, Morgan was diagnosed with Schizophrenia.  Anissa attempted to use mental health as an excuse  as the two went to court to see if they would be tried as adults or children.  Despite both their best efforts, the judge ruled they would both be tried as adults due to the severity of the crime.

When the case eventually went to court in 2017, both girls were now aged 16.  Anissa pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted 2nd degree homicide, but found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Morgan accepted a plea deal in her case meaning she would not have to go to trial.  She pleaded guilty to attempted first degree homicide, but interestingly, despite her diagnosis of Schizophrenia, was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Anissa was sentenced to a 25 years to life term, which would involve at least three years locked confinement, involuntary treatment in a state psychiatric institute, followed by communal supervision until age 37.

Morgan was sentenced to 40 years to life, which involved at least 3 years locked confinement, involuntary treatment in a state psychiatric institute until complete resolution of symptoms or until age 53, whichever came first, continued communal supervision, periodic re-evaluations and/or reinstitution.

In 2020 Morgan appealed to be retried as a juvenile, citing that she had not been read her Miranda rights before giving statement to police.  The court rejected her appeal.

September 2021, Anissa was released under the following conditions:

• 24 hour GPS monitoring requiring her to not leave Wakesha County
• Will have internet usage monitored
• No social media
• Required to take medication
• Escorted to counselling sessions
• Required to live with her father

Two years later, Anissa’s requirement to be GPS monitored was revoked.

As of January 2024, Morgan remains in prison.  However, she has recently petitioned the court for her release.  The hearing is scheduled for April 2024.

This case remains one of the worst and probably most complex cases in American history.  It must not be forgotten that the two attempted murderers were just 12 years old at the time.  One was most definitely suffering from Schizophrenia plus perhaps other issues too.  This does not excuse what she did, but is a reason.   The real victim here is of course Payton.  The pain and suffering she endured that day is unimaginable.  She was extremely fortunate to be alive after that horrendous attack.  Her recovery was long but miraculous and deserves the utmost praise.