When fascination turns to obsession – and fact and fiction become blurred – that’s when things tend to get dangerous for all involved.
In 2009, Eric Knudsen won a Photoshop contest on a forum called Something Awful. He created the Slender Man, a tall, thin, featureless, white-faced man who wore a black suit. The phenomenon took the forum by storm, creating fans worldwide who would create fanfiction, art, and Photoshop renditions of the Slender Man. Fans even created their own lore around the figure.
The Slender Man was known to cause amnesia, sickness, such as coughing, and paranoid behaviour. The character was also known to hide out in forests, and stalk children. The lore took the Internet by storm, creating an entire mythos on the Creepypasta Wiki for the character.
Video games and movies were inspired by the Slender Man. But none were as fascinated, as obsessed, with Slender Man as Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, who truly believed Slender Man was real, their friend, and would be good to them if they did his bidding.
Prior to their obsession, Morgan Geyser was best friends with Payton Leutner. They hung out around school, played together after school, had sleepovers, and did all the fun things friends did together. Morgan even nicknamed Payton ‘Bella’, using the name as a status of how close their friendship was.
Two years into the friendship, Geyser met Anissa Weier. According to Payton, Weier wasn’t her biggest fan. Geyser and Weier were becoming interested in creepy things that frightened Payton. However, she tried to become interested in what they liked, because she wanted to keep being their friend.
Geyser and Weier soon became obsessed with the website Creepypasta, especially anything relating to the Slender Man. They believed that Slender Man was real. They wanted to become his “proxies”, and live in his mansion, which they believed was found in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. By doing so, they could keep themselves and their families safe, they believed. And there was only one way to do that – they had to kill someone.
So, on May 30th, 2014, 12-year-olds Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier invited Payton Leutner to a sleepover in order to celebrate Geyser’s birthday. They went roller skating, had pizza for dinner, and played with their American Girl dolls. But then Geyser wanted to go to bed early.
This was an odd turn of events. Usually, Geyser was keen on staying up all night during sleepovers. But this night, she felt tired and groggy. She reportedly told her friend Weier: “Let her have another morning”.
The next morning, on May 31st, 2014, Geyser and Weier decided to take Payton out to David’s Park, and walk around in the forest. Payton thought they were playing hide and seek, and thought nothing of it when Weier told her to lie down.
As soon as she was down, Geyser pulled out a kitchen knife, with a five-inch blade. Payton was pinned down, and stabbed 19 times. Two wounds hit major organs, another barely missed a major artery in her heart, another tore through her diaphragm, and cut into her liver and stomach.
Payton lay there in shock. Geyser and Weier promised to go get help, but they left her there to bleed out. Payton managed to pull herself up, and drag herself to a nearby road. She found a patch of grass where she decided to lie down. Thankfully, a cyclist found her, and called 911. Payton was then rushed to hospital.
It didn’t take investigators long to locate her friends, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. They were found at a furniture store, near Interstate 94. They still had the knife they used to stab their friend.
Geyser asked police if Payton was dead while she was being questioned. She was reported to have shown little to no remorse for her actions. She was certain that what she’d done had been in the best interest of the Slender Man.
Weier, on the other hand, seemed to have felt guilty about what she’d participated in. However, she was also concerned about whether or not this would make the Slender Man happy. In fact, she asked the detective questioning her just how far they’d walked from where they’d left Payton. She wanted to know how close they’d come to the Slender Man’s mansion in the woods.
Both girls seemed only to be concerned about the Slender Man, and making him happy. They wanted to appease him, and keep their families safe. They wanted to be with him, and act alongside him.
While their confession came easy, their motive left detective baffled. These two young girls truly believed that what they’d done had been the right thing to do. Because they truly believed that the Slender Man was real, and they wanted to be with him.
Payton Leutner survived her attack. She was in the hospital recovering for seven days, before she was allowed to go home and continue her recovery. She returned to school in the fall of 2014.
In order to avoid a lengthy trial, Anissa Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree himicide in 2017. Later, a jury found her “not guilty by mental disease or defect”.
She was ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life. The sentence was left indeterminate, in which she is to spend three years confined in involuntary treatment in a state psychiatric institute. Following those three years, Weier is to undergo communal supervision until age 37.
At the same time, Morgan Geyser accepted a plea deal. The deal stated that she would not go to trial, and she would consent to being evaluated by a team of psychiatrists. Later, she pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted homicide. However, she was found “not guilty by mental disease or defect”.
She was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was sentenced to 40 years to life, the maximum sentence allowed. Her sentence was also left indeterminate, in which she is to spend three years confined. In addition to those three years, she is to undergo treatment supervised by a state psychiatric institute “until complete resolution of symptoms or until age 53, whichever may happen first”. This involuntary treatment is to be followed up by “continued communal supervision, periodic reevaluations and/or reinstitution and further treatment, as needed, as required by the sentence imposed”.
In 2020, Morgan Geyser’s petition to be retried as a juvenile was rejected by an appeals court. Geyser’s attorney has petitioned the state Supreme Court to review the ruling, arguing that Geyser should have been tried for second-degree attempted homicide, rather than first-degree.
Everyone fantasizes a little now and then. But very rarely do the lines between fact and fiction blur as much as they did in the case of two pre-teen girls obsessed with a fictional character made from nightmare fuel.
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Sources:
The Complete Timeline and True Story Behind the Slender Man Stabbing – DeAnna Janes – Oprah Magazine
Slender Man stabbing teenager appeals sentence – BBC News
Killer Conversations: The Slender Man stabbing – Mollie Chambers – University of Tennessee’s The Daily Beacon
Slender Man Stabbing – Crime Museum
‘Slender Man’ stabbing victim Payton Leutner on the friends who tried to kill her – Yaron Steinbuch – New York Post
Slender Man Stabbing Wikipedia page