Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 12-year-old girl stabbed & left for dead by 'Besties'

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

Two girls stab their best friend 19 times. Why? They wanted to appease the fictional horror character, Slender Man. Both girls are serving time in a mental health facility. After an attorney files an appeal, there's a chance both girls could walk free.Joining Nancy Grace to discuss the case: Ashley Wilcott - Judge and trial attorney  Jeff Cortese - Former Special Agent FBI  Dr. Bethany Marshall- Psychoanalyst  Karen Smith- Forensic Expert of Bare Bones Consulting  Levi Page- CrimeOnline reporter  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. I don't know how the twins, my 12-year-old twins, know about this, but they know who Slenderman is. They don't know a lot about him, but they know he's a tall, ghoulish, eerie-looking, thin, very pale man dressed in a suit, and he gets slaves or minions to follow him. How do they know this? Well, this is what I know about Slender Man. The sci-fi character was the inspiration for the brutal stabbing assault on a little girl at the hands of her two so-called besties, her best friends. The scary part? Slender Man lives. This is Crime Stories. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

What's the address of your emergency? I'm transferred over a caller on Big Bend at the dead end just south of Rivera. Okay. He's calling from ******. Came up on a 12-year-old female. She appears to be stabbed. She appears to be what? Stabbed. Stabbed?

Correct. Okay. Sir, you still there? Yes. Hi, sir. So are you with this 12-year-old female? Yes. She says she's having trouble breathing.

She said she was stabbed multiple times. Stabbed multiple times? Yes. Okay, sir, are you with her right now? Yes. Is she awake? She's awake. Is she breathing?

Yeah, she's breathing. She said she can take shallow breaths. She's alert. Okay, stay with her. We're sending the police department. Don't hang up, okay? Hold on just a minute. Don't hang up.

Okay. Okay. Hold on just a minute. Don't hang up. Okay. Okay. Hold on just a minute, sir. We're sending officers. Is there any assailant around? I didn't even look. I don't see anybody. Okay. Stay right with her, sir. Is she on the ground or is she standing up? No, she's laying on the grass. Is there any bleeding going on? Her clothing has got blood on it. Where are the wounds? Do you see where the wounds are? No, I don't know if I should be rolling her over and checking or not. Do you know where? Okay, just stay with her and just let me know if she's conscious or alert or stops breathing or anything. Hold on, I'm going to talk to the ambulance. Police are also en route. Okay, so you see any active bleeding or blood spurting out or anything like that?

No, unless it's underneath her. I just see dried blood. Okay, just dried blood. Okay. You are hearing a 911 call that becomes even more chilling when you realize the victim is a 12-year-old little girl. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories in the last days. The victim speaks out. Listen to our friends at TMJ4. Weier told police planning the attack made her scared, but she wanted to prove Slenderman skeptics wrong. I was scared because A, I would never see my family again, and B, I was kind of hopeful to prove that I wasn't crazy. Geiser says the victim, Peyton, had been her best friend for years. She says she didn't choose Peyton, but went along with it.

We stabbed her. It was weird. Did you stab her? We had the baby. Most of the time I did. I wanted to hurt people before, but they're not nice to me, so they deserve it.

A little girl saying before I wanted to hurt people and they deserved it? Two girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weir, could they possibly have lured their 12-year-old little best friend out into the woods and then stabbed her, leaving her for dead? That's what police are reporting. And in the last days, the little girl who miraculously survives, Peyton Lautner, speaks out. Joining me in all-star panel, Jason Oceans,

renowned defense attorney in the New York, New Jersey area. Cloyd Steiger, 36 years in the Seattle Police Department, 22 years homicide detective, author of Homicide, The View from Inside the Yellow Tape. You can find him at cloydsteiger.com. Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Renowned forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Bober, joining us out of the Florida jurisdiction. Right now to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Levi Page. Levi, take me back to the night. This little girl was stabbed

multiple times, left for dead, bleeding out, left to, quote, bleed out in the woods. You'd think it was a sex offender, a registered sex offender, a pedophile, a maniac. But it turns out it's two little girls? Yes, Nancy. May 30, 2014, Morgan Geyser is celebrating her birthday. She had turned 12, and she invited two of her classmates, her friend Peyton Lutner and Anissa Weir, who are also 12, over to her home. They went skating. They ate frozen yogurt.

They had a slumber party. Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop right there. Jason Oceans, you know what it is. It's time for the twins' birthday parties. Now they want separate parties, separate parties, things like Levi Pace just said, Jason, skating, birthday birthday cakes manicures pedicures for the little girls laser tag for the little boys but this is just like every other

kid's birthday party jason oceans you've got two children you've lived through it not no no doubt about it and uh happy birthday to to the twins and uh yes the challenge has become great don't try to butter me up jason oceans you're still a defense attorney nothing's going to change that battle nancy always the prosecutor so i hear you it makes it worse to me um joseph scott morgan you've lived through plenty of trials as have you claude steiger when it's a wolf in sheep's clothes joe scott that this was supposed to be an innocent fun birthday party for little 12-year-old girls. I mean, really. Yeah, you would think that they'd be completely and totally safe.

But, yeah, and your defenses are down, wouldn't you think, 12 years old? Who's going to expect that this kind of behavior is going to rise up among what would seemingly be a few innocent little children? I mean, Chloe Steiger, 36 years, Seattle PD, 22 years, homicide detective. I mean, I've seen plenty of 12-year-old killers. I'm not proud of it, but I had to do a stint in juvenile, but usually they're 12-year-olds going on 25, dopers, you know, getting their parents drugs, mental issues that nobody knew about. Those types of killings by 12-year-olds.

But two little suburban 12-year-old girls having a birthday party? Really? Have you ever seen anything like that, Chloe? Because I have not. I've never seen anything of the 12-year-old. I've seen something very similar with some, like, 16-year-old boys or, like, you know, not criminal boys that lured one of their friends into the woods and killed them because of an argument over a girl but uh this is really an

anomaly and like you said i've arrested i think the youngest i've arrested is 13 but that was a gangbang thing you know and a long history of violence before that so it's really unusual a lot different from a little girl's sleepover in suburbia to dr daniel bober it it's like when uh let me just compare it to a little old lady you pass in the street and she's got a walker and she pulls out an uzi on you and takes your money and runs you don't see it coming that i'm what what am i trying to say put it in forensic psychiatric words well nancy it's a little bit different than an old lady a 12 year old doesn't really have the capacity to make those types of I'm saying you don't see it coming bober I know there's a difference in a little old lady and a 12 year old girl what I'm saying is the

whole wolf in sheep's clothing thing bober yeah well I I agree with you you definitely don't see it coming it's not it's not something you would ever see coming I agree with you on that wait you're the renowned forensic psychiatrist and your takeaway is yeah Nancy is something you would ever see coming i agree with you on that wait you're the renowned forensic psychiatrist and your takeaway is yeah nancy is something you don't see coming that's it i i've already said that dr bober you're gonna have to think of something impressive and psychiatric right now well let me just say that if it was something we would see coming then this wouldn't even be a story that we'd be talking about but But my point is, is that it's something that you would not expect out of a 12-year-old, but when it happens, it's something that is explainable by the fact that they don't really have the capacity to weigh the future consequences of their actions. Well, you're certainly right about that. Levi Page,

all you had to do was say skating rink and everything went sideways. Let's just go back to the party. What happened? So they had a sleepover, and after the sleepover in the morning, the three girls went to the park. They went for a walk, and this was Morgan Geiser and Anissa Weir's idea to go for a walk. So they went out into the woods, and while they were in the woods, they were playing hide-and-seek, or they were pretending to play hide-and-seek. And they told Peyton Lautner to lay down in the leaves and that they were going to hide.

Well, instead, Morgan Geyser pulled out a knife and stabbed her 19 times. And this is after they have a spend-the-night with the little girl, the three of them besties. Take a listen to our friend David Muir at ABC 2020 with Angie Geysers, Morgan's mom. It's Friday night in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb. Peyton is getting ready to celebrate her best friend Morgan Geyser's birthday at that slumber party. Peyton was so, so excited. The girls met in fourth grade, Peyton drawn to Morgan because she was a loner who needed a friend. I made friends with her when I saw that she didn't have any friends at all. Also at that

sleepover, Anissa Wire, who was new to the school and who had grown close to Morgan. They played up in Morgan's bedroom, ran up and down the stairs, giggling and and I mean it was just a normal night. But there was nothing normal about what happened the next morning when Morgan and Anissa suggest they all go to the park and then to the woods together. Anissa told me to lie on the ground and like cover myself in like sticks and leaves and stuff but it was really just a trick. While playing hide and seek then came Anissa's command and Morgan attacks Peyton just a trick. While playing hide and seek, then came Anissa's command, and Morgan attacks Peyton with a knife. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Morgan said, don't be afraid. I'm only a little kitty cat. And jumped on top of Bella and stabbed her repeatedly. And do you remember when it started? Kind of. I didn't feel anything because my body was in shock. They told me to lay down. You'll lose blood slower.

Like, we're going to go get help. And she tried to get up? Yeah, she tried to get up. She said that she couldn't see, she couldn't walk, and that she couldn't breathe. And they told her they were going to go get her help. But Anissa flat out said, no, we weren't getting her help. We wanted her to die.

I got up and then just walked until I hit a patch of grass where I could lay down. A bicyclist notices Peyton bloodied and lying in the grass. He calls 911. You're hearing our friends at ABC 2020. That was David Muir with Peyton along with Detective Trussoni. Did you notice, Joseph Scott Morgan, that the little victim, the 12-year-old Peyton, says, oh, by the way, when you hear them refer to Bella, that's her nickname. Peyton's nickname is Bella. Did you hear her say, I didn't feel anything?

What does that mean? Well, that means, and she's actually, in some of her interviews, she's gone on to say that she was in shock, and I'm sure that that's what's been conveyed to her, because she would have asked, why didn't I feel anything? It's a primal response that we have to being attacked like this. And Nancy, this little girl was stabbed 19 times over a variety of areas in her body. So after a period of time, the body is beginning to shut down just so that she's not going to feel this response. Man, I've always heard of your body going into shock and you don't feel things. You know, Jason, you and I have discussed this many, many times. Jason Ocean is with me, veteran defense attorney in the tri-state area, New York, New

Jersey, Pennsylvania. Jason, I always wondered about my fiance when he was murdered. You know, he was shot five times in the neck, the face, the head. I always hoped that he went into shock and didn't understand or know what was happening, that he was alive, and then he was gone. But I also know that when he got to the hospital, even after all that, he was physically still alive. His heart was still beating. So I guess it's a blessing when people physically go into shock. For sure, Nancy. You know, as the doctor said, that's a natural reaction. And, you know,

you listen to the testimony of, and you're just, you're shocked as well. You know, she reacted that way. And the 12-year year old, the scenario of what happened to her, she explains it. It'd be only natural and in some way a blessing that she doesn't feel that physical pain of being stabbed 19 times. You know, I've noticed it with my daughter, Dr. Daniel Bober, my little Lucy. The other day we tried, what a scene, to take fat boy for a walk I even had him on a leash somehow he wiggled out he's a dachshund mix he wiggled out of the leash he took off running and got between two rottweilers he started the fight with two rottweilers in between them and I immediately take off which was completely wrong but I instinctively tried to pull him out from between the two Rottweilers,

who basically just ignored him, thank goodness. But he was, I guess, fighting with himself, trying to egg them on. But I turned back quickly because I yelled at the children, stay away, go back, don't come over here. Lucy had just frozen. She was still standing in the same position, holding the leash in her hand, dangling. John David was jumping up and down, yelling and running around in circles and trying to come over.

But Lucy froze. And I've noticed that. Dr. Bober, what is that instinct when you are in shock and you just freeze? Well, Nancy, they talk about fight or flight, but it's really fight, flight, or freeze. And that's the freeze. And the freeze is sort of what we call dissociation, where you're disconnected from your thoughts and your emotions when you become too overwhelmed. That's what it is. Floyd Steiger with me, 22 years homicide detective and author of Homicide, The View from Inside the Yellow Tape. Floyd, have you seen that on criminal scenes before, where witnesses, defendants, victims just freeze in the moment? I have several times.

And I've also talked to a lot of people who have been stabbed and survived. And they said the same thing. They didn't even know they were being stabbed. They thought they were just being punched. And, you know, fortunately, I could talk to some parents of a young girl that was stabbed to death and tell them she probably didn't suffer before she died. And that means a lot to them because it is. I mean, I hear it all the time. I've heard it over my entire career. I didn't even know it was being stabbed. I just thought it was being punished. So, I mean, that is a blessing. I've heard it too. I have heard that too. Well, that is what this little girl

was saying that she didn't feel anything at the beginning. Listen. Do you remember leaving the park to go to the woods? They just wanted to go on a walk and i didn't think much of it it's just a walk it's in waukesha like what bad stuff happens in waukesha wisconsin after we go into the woods we say we're gonna play hide and seek anisa told me to lie on the ground and like cover myself in like sticks and leaves and stuff but it was really just a trick i give it back to her and say you do go ballistic and she said okay i'll go ballistic whenever when you say you want me to and i'm like when i was five feet away i said now i'm like i'm gonna go ballistic go crazy make sure she's down.

What did you do next? I already told you. What was that? Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. When you hear them describe to investigators, and he's telling Morgan just to do it, I think the word was go ballistic. Oh, I remember that.

I do remember them chatting right next to me while I was just laying there. Stabbed 19 times and left by her attackers to, quote, bleed out dead in the woods. The shock, her attackers are two other 12-year-old little girls. In the last days, the victim who miraculously survived, her mom says doctors claim that they found one of the stab wounds about an eighth of an inch from one of her arteries. An eighth of an inch between life and death. How could two 12-year-old little besties do something like this? Listen to our friend David Muir with Peyton. After they stabbed her 19 times, they encouraged her just to lay down in the woods and rest. What they really wanted her to do was bleed out in the woods.

Do you remember what you said to them? I trusted you, and then they told me to lay down. You'll lose blood slower. Like, we're going to go get help. Did she try to get up? Yeah, she tried to get up. She said that she couldn't see. And they told her they were going to go get her help. But Anissa flat out said, no, we aren't getting her help. We wanted her to die.

Do you remember the moment they left you? I think I remember them running away. But I kind of just laid there for a minute. You walked out of the woods? I got up, grabbed a couple trees for support, I think, and then just walked until I hit a patch of grass where I could lay down. It's amazing that she had the strength to do that

with the injuries that she had. When I told her that the girls were in custody, it seemed to give her a sense of relief. The girls were ultimately arrested for first-degree attempt homicide. That's a very serious charge. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It wasn't until we sat down and we started talking with the girls that we really knew what was going on,

that it was two 12-year-old girls that had planned for six months to kill their friends. You don't often see this with adults, and to have this happen between 12-year-olds is absolutely horrifying. Have you ever watched any of those interrogations? I watched a little bit. What was your reaction? It was a little shocking to me to see that they had this big, huge plan that they had been working on for months. A big, huge plan they had been working on for months. A big huge plan they had been working on for months. A little girl has a spend the night birthday party with her other 12 year old friends. The three of them go for a walk and the two friends Mark and Geyser and Anissa Weir execute a long planned scheme

to murder Peyton Lautner just years old, also known as Bella. You are hearing our friend David Muir at 20-20 speaking because in the last days, Peyton speaks out a huge plan that they had for months, but why? Listen. This is where the story takes another turn to a fictional character on the internet. slender man. He's, um, he's, uh, this tall, faceless man who preys on children. That is a will. He can, um, like, exploit these tendrils from his back, and, uh, like, strangle his victim. For bold and creepy pasta, when he said he targets children most. Anissa explained to me that to prove yourself worthy to Slender, you would have to kill somebody.

You have to kill someone to go live with Slender Man. You're hearing our friend David Muir and detectives during the investigation of the attempt to stab little 12-year-old Bella dead. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Levi Page with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative journalist. Who is Slender Man? So this is a fictional character, Nancy, that is very prevalent in creepypasta communities, and creepypasta communities is like horror stories that people tell on forums like Reddit. It's very popular there. And this is a guy that someone drew, an artist, and he has a featureless face. He's tall, thin. He's often wearing a suit. He looks very ghost-like. And he likes to stalk and

traumatize children in these creepypasta stories. He also uses mind control to tell them what to do. And apparently, Morgan Geyser was obsessed with Slender Man. When law enforcement got a search warrant for her room, they found drawings of Slender Man. She had researched him on the internet, had read creepypasta stories about him. And they also found that she had been thinking about murder for a long time because months in advance of this attack,

she had searched on the Internet how to get away with murder. Well, there's everything you need to show premeditation to defense attorney Jason Oceans. The girls tell police they were convinced to murder their little friend, Peyton Lautner, known as Bella, by Slenderman. Slenderman's not real, Jason. He's fictional. And how can both girls have the same psychiatric delusion at the same time? That's the same thing I keep talking about all of Epstein's guards in the jail. How can they all fall asleep at the same time? It's the same thing I keep talking about all of Epstein's guards in the jail. How can they all fall asleep at the same time and leave him to be found dead?

How can two little girls have the same psychiatric break with reality? This was just their excuse for murdering their little friend. They are murderers. Nancy, I analogize this type of, you know, mind control that the young lady placed in this Slenderman character to, you know, Jim Jones, or any cult, or David Koresh, where people are willing to not only to sacrifice themselves,

but their children in belief. And those are adults, right? Brain formed out all the way by 22, right? And these are adults with children. And you would think, my God, you know, sacrifice yourself. How do you do your children? It does shock the conscience that this happened. And clearly from monitoring your children and creepy pasta stories because they're creepy with fun but noticing some differences in your children with being withdrawn or just something more sinister is the responsibility of parenting. You can't just be disengaged when your child has been having seemingly these thoughts, murderous thoughts, for so long. You've got to see a change in your child.

You just can't be an absentee parent. What about it? Dr. Daniel Bober joining me, forensic psychiatrist out of the Florida jurisdiction. Apparently, the parents knew nothing, had no idea anything was going on with their children. Yeah, Nancy, you see this a lot. For example, I remember during the Columbine shootings, parents had no idea that that Klebold and Harris were stockpiling weapons in their own garage. Like they never bothered to check that there were weapons being stockpiled in their garage. So unfortunately, this is something that happens with parents. They just kind of give their kids these electronic babysitters like cell phones. They're not really paying attention to what's going on.

But in regards to what you said before, yes, of course, the kids did not have the same delusion. But sometimes when you get two kids together and one of them has a more dominant personality and more dominant traits, they will lead the weaker kid to go along with their plan, even though it's not something they would have done on their own. Take a listen to this. I've never gone into an interview so blind as I have in this one. I thought that maybe this was all about a boy. This is a fight about a boy. I still don't know what happened, and I don't know who did what, and I need to know that today.

Okay? We didn't know what these girls were going to tell us. What were you trying to do with her when you stabbed her? Kill her. I might as well just say it. We were trying to kill her. So why did you pick Peyton? I didn't pick her. Who picked her?

Whoever Anitil was talking about. She made it seem necessary. My thought was, why would she do this? Who the heck is Slenderman? To think that two 12-year-olds would come up with something like this and plan it out for six months. As soon as I heard, I knew that this was going to be a big deal. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Over my radio, I heard that a 12-year-old girl had been stabbed about a mile and a half away from this location.

911, we're going to transfer over a caller on Big Bend. Came upon a 12-year-old female. She appears to be stabbed. She appears to be what? Stabbed. Stabbed? Correct. The road that she was located on was Big Bend Road at the dead end of that. Peyton wasn't moving a whole lot. As I approached her, I said, hi, I'm Officer Dan. Are you okay?

And she said, no. And I said, okay, help is on the way. Just stay right where you are. And as I got closer, I started to see a little bit more blood and the closer I got the more blood I saw. Somehow she'd been able to pull herself out of those woods and in another moment of strength she was able to communicate with him. I asked her who did this and she told me her friend Morgan. I then asked her where did this happen and she told me that it happened in the woods she was the first one to reveal that it was morgan her best friend who was behind this you're hearing officer dan klein speaking with 2020's david muir right now these two girls morgan geyser and anisa were in a mental institution but now appealing that conviction are they set to be released levi page crime online.com investigative reporter levi when the search warrant was executed on geyser and where's homes what was found so i i mentioned about the internet searches on Morgan's computer that said how to get away with murder.

They had also found mutilated dolls in her room that had the body parts cut off of them. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. To Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joseph Scott Morgan, this is right up your alley, speaking of forensics. Yeah, well, Nancy, let me go to something real quick that, you know, we've talked about this obsession that these girls have with Slenderman, and they're doing his bidding and living in this fantastical world where they're, you know, they've got to make some kind of, I don't know, sacrifice this guy.

Let me tell you what's based in reality. What's based in reality is this poor girl was subject to being stabbed by five, a blade of five inches in length. And she stabbed 19 times. Nancy, her liver was actually clipped. It passed through her pancreas. It passed through her diaphragm and she was very close to dying. You know, I did a calculation just a moment ago. Let's just say that she only weighed 80 pounds, 12 years old. You know, she's gotten less than a gallon of blood in her body. It is an absolute miracle that she survived.

And I'm just talking about the organs, not to mention all the little peripheral stab wounds that she sustained. She had an angel on her shoulder at that time. The injuries done to this 12-year-old little girl are overwhelming. But listen to this. After Weir and Geiser tell detectives they had to kill Bella to become Slend Man's servants. We now know that when the jury decided the little girls were mentally insane or had a mental defect, this means that every six months they can petition the court to be released. Every six months, according to the victim's mom.

She says the potential release of an assailant that methodically planned and executed an attack on our little girl, where she was stabbed 19 times, puts the community and our family at risk. Levi Page, as a matter of fact, they are appealing their treatment as adults isn't that right you're correct nancy but i'm wondering how how that's going to work out because they pleaded guilty anisa weir took a plea deal and she put pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of attempted second degree intentional homicide as part of her deal, a jury would hear her insanity defense, then they were going to decide on whether or not she would be responsible and sent to prison or not guilty by a reason of a mental defect and sent to a mental institution.

They wanted to send her to a mental institution, so she didn't get sent to prison. In 2017, a jury found her not guilty by reason of a mental disease or defect and was sentenced to a 25-year commitment into a state institution. And Morgan Geiser's lawyers also made a similar deal. She pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and prosecutors agreed as part of this deal not to challenge her insanity defense, and she was sentenced to 40 years in a mental institution. So how do you appeal something that you agreed to as part of a plea deal?

Well, you're actually correct on that. And Jason Oceans, what they're arguing is they should not have had a jury trial, a bench trial, or even a plea in adult court. That's correct, Nancy. And, you know, I'm just still torn as defense counsel and father between these, you know, these two parallels. And I guess the part of me that says that they're not in prison, but in a mental institution seems to me more appropriate at this point in juncture. You know, we can look at it again and see about mental rehabilitation, but I wouldn't want them in population even segregated.

And I think the ability to get mental health because at 12 years old to be lured into or dominated by another 12-year-old into evil, to me, shocks the system. And for the older one, Morgan, more dominant in the entire process and planning it out, the mutilated dolls, yeah, appropriate sentence. I'm just shocked. I am too. And I hope this appeal doesn't work to Cloyd Steiger, 22 years homicide detective, author of Homicide, The View from Inside the Yellow Tape. When you commit a murder at age 12, or in this case, attempted murder, that's a tough sell to be released back out into the community. Because if you are homicidal at that age, what are you going

to be like at 21? Yeah, that's just the question. I mean, it really puts people at risk. But first of all, I also wanted to say that this police department, which is a relatively small police department, probably not very experienced in homicide, they did a great job from the patrol officer getting there, asking appropriate questions, and great job by both the detectives and their interviews and the techniques they use and the casualness and the setting of the room. So, I mean, you know, people from big cities, New York, Los Angeles, they don't expect to have a case like this, but when it happens in a suburban smaller town,

you just think they'd be overwhelmed, but they came, they stepped to the plate, but you're right about that. I mean, how much risk are you going to take? I mean, I'm a grandfather of little girls, you know, I wouldn't want them around anybody like this. So it was just a terrible case all the way around. Take a listen to Peyton, the victim, also known as Bella, as she speaks out. Have you ever watched any of those interrogations? I watched a little bit. What was your reaction? It was a little shocking to me to see that they had this big, huge plan that they had been working on for months. Do you remember leaving the park to go to the woods?

They just wanted to go on a walk, and I didn't think much of it. It's just a walk. It's in Waukesha. Like, what bad stuff happens in Waukesha, Wisconsin? And Nisa told me to lie on the ground and, like, cover myself in, like, sticks and leaves and stuff, but it was really just a trick.

When you hear them describe to investigators and Nisa telling Morgan just to do it, I think the word was go ballistic. Oh, I remember that. I do remember them chatting right next to me while I was just laying there. And do you remember when it started? Kind of. I didn't feel anything because my body was in shock from the adrenaline. I didn't feel

a thing. Do you remember the moment they left you? I think I remember them running away, but I kind of just laid there for a minute. You walked out of the woods. I got up, grabbed a couple trees for support, I think, and then just walked until I hit a patch of grass where I could lay down. Wow. To Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist joining us, what would be the prospects of these two girls would be killers ever becoming anything less than a threat if they are released.

Nancy, I totally agree with you. I'm sorry, I strike that. I totally disagree with you. The brain of a 12-year-old. I believe that's what you call a Freudian slip, but go ahead. The brain of a 12-year-old is just not the brain of a 25-year-old, and the science is not consistent with what you guys are saying. For example, children who display what we call conduct disorder behavior two-thirds of them do not go on

i repeat do not go on to become antisocial so a 12 year old committing a murder wait a minute did you say conduct disorder it's what we call conduct disorder it's sort of the the forerunner does that include stabbing deaths i agree that a stabbing i mean you're making it sound like she just threw a tantrum in the floor of target no that's not what happened but no that's actually that would actually be more oppositional behavior but the point i'm trying to make is you can't say that someone who's 12 who commits a murder at 25 is going to be a menace to society because they're a totally different person so they have a totally different brain at 25 than they did at age 12 well you know there may not

be much we can do about it because one of the girls who pled guilty to stabbing her little 12 year old friend 19 times and leaving her for dead to please a pretend character named Slender Man has appealed. We believe that that appeal, if granted, could end in the reversal of the sentence or the conviction. The basis of the appeal, we believe, is going to be that the girl should not have been handled, whether it's a plea, a bench trial, or a jury trial in adult court. But I do know that what happened has changed Peyton Leitner, the victim's life, forever. One of the things I will never forget from this interview with Peyton Leitner all these years later is what she said to me when I asked, what would you say to Morgan Geiser if you saw her today? If she saw this interview, what would you want to say to her? There's a lot that I would want to say to her.

I would probably initially thank her, I would say. Because of what she did, I have the life I have now, which I really, really like it. You do know that when people hear you say, I would probably thank her, that they're going to be surprised. Yeah, I'm surprised to hear myself say that. Why? Because I wouldn't think that someone who went through what I did would ever say that, but that's truly how I feel. Like, without the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am.

Stronger? Mm-hmm. the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am. Stronger. Well, I hear what the little victim is saying now, but I also know she still sleeps with scissors under her pillow and can't openly make friends or trust anyone after lying on the forest floor bleeding out near death, we wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.