Every Town - The CHILLING True Story of the Slenderman Murder: What Really Happened?

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

What could have two 12-year old girls done to be charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide? The answer to that question might shock you. It’s because they planned for months to kill someone who viewed them as a friend, and they did all this to appease a fictitious character called Slender Man. 💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

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It's because they plan for months to kill someone who viewed them as a friend. And they did all this to appease a fictitious character called Slender Man. If that seems crazy to you, then we're in for a ride together. Welcome back, guys, to another episode of Everytown. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald. And today we'll be talking about what's known as the slender man stabbing. With the girls, Morgan Geiser and Anissa Weir stabbed their victim 19 times with a 5-inch blade. Luckily, their victim survived.

So let's head up to Akesha Wisconsin, back to 2014, and learn about all the crazy details. It all started back when Peyton Lautner, the victim and all this, first approached Morgan when they were in fourth grade. After that, the pair became best friends. They hung out after school, had sleepovers, did everything that most little girls do. Morgan even gave Peyton a cute nickname, Bella. And Morgan told police she was my only friend for a very long time. Two years later, Morgan met Anisa, and the two became friends. The girls had only recently met, but they lived in the same apartment complex and had been riding the bus together.

That was when Peyton claimed that everything went downhill. She later stated that she disliked Anisa. She simply hung out with her because she knew Morgan adored her as a friend. Peyton said Anisa wasn't always kind to her, and she felt like she was jealous of her friendship with Morgan. When Peyton tried to avoid them, Morgan would always guilt-trip her. As the distance between them started to grow larger, Peyton believes they were probably already planning her murder.

At that time, Morgan and Nizabeth, Nisa became obsessed with an internet fictitious character named Slender Man, which scared Peyton, but she said she went along with it anyway. Payton said, Morgan liked it and thought it was real, but I just went along with it. I was supportive because I thought that's what she liked. So you might be wondering who exactly is Slender Man. Well, Slender Man was given life in 2009 in a creepy pasta portion of the internet. It became a paranormal meme produced for a Photoshop competition. A user with the handle, Victor Surge, later identified as Florida resident Eric Nudson,

posted two photos of the Slender Man, a figure he created using his imagination and his computer. The first photograph showed a tall, slim, supernatural figure in a formal black suit, lurking in the shadows behind a group of teens. His second photo was Photoshop to include a phony library seal and several children smiling at the camera. It caught on and soon, others began to Photoshop images of the slender man in the background of seemingly harmful photos, videos, or drawings just for fun. His pale face is almost never visible. It's either completely faceless or completely blank. Some people have imagined him with tentacles and unnaturally long blackest.

suited arms and legs. A rumor spread that those who witnessed him were said to lose their memories or minds. The faceless, slender character was known to stalk children and his legend and penetrated digital stories, online videos, and even actual life. Even a 2018 movie starring Joey King was influenced by it. As Slender Man's popularity increased a storyline about him did as well. He stalks people and kidnaps children before brutally killing them, dismembering them, and bagging their internal organs. There was a catch, though. If someone murders for the Slender Man, they are turned into proxies and the Slender Man won't harm their families. Additionally, proxies get to reside in a castle in the middle of a forest with the Slender Man. The character

was pretty popular at the time, so it's no surprise Morgan and Anisa took an interesting. in them, especially since they love the supernatural. What Peyton didn't know was that Morgan had many hallucinations as a child, including seeing ghost, colors fusing together and imaginary friends. One named Maggie and another Sev. One frequent hallucination was of a man Morgan named It, who stood behind her in mirrors or moved around corners in the manner of Slender Man and whose body was the color of smoke and ink. Anisa and Morgan, I believe that the slender man could communicate with them telepathically, and that he lived in an abandoned mansion five hours away from their hometown. And they hoped that by killing Peyton, they would prove the slender man's existence and will

become his proxies. They were also worried that if they didn't kill her, the slender man would harm them. They had at least three plans to kill Peyton. However, as the murder was being planned, several setbacks made them realize they would have to improvise. Just imagine two little girls planning a murder that is so calculating. No one would have suspected them. The night before the stabbing, the trio was celebrating Morgan's 12th birthday with a slumber party. Every birthday, Morgan was allowed to invite two friends over and she decided to spend the night with Peyton and Anisa that year.

But what started out as a regular night of pizza, roller skating, an American girl doll, took an unusual turn. In hindsight, according to Peyton, the sleepover was a little different from all their others, because Morgan didn't want to stay up all night. Little did she know that the girls had planned to ductate Peyton's mouth while she slept, and then stab her in the neck, that the girls were too sleepy and exhausted from a full day of activities to follow through with it. Who would have thought that two little girls were thinking of doing something so vulgar?

The fact that they were only 12 years old when it happened really proves how shocking this whole thing was. The next morning, they went to David's Park, a local spot in the girl's hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Milwaukee. While Peyton was changing into a pink dress for a dress-up session, the other two girls devised a new strategy. They'd kill her in that park,

in a bathroom stall where the drain could wash away all her blood. The girls wouldn't typically be permitted to visit the park without an adult. However, since it was Morgan's birthday, her mother gave the group permission to enjoy the beautiful morning all by themselves. Before the girls left, Anisa and Morgan took a knife from the kitchen. And later, each girl would blame the other for stealing the knife and both would deny doing it. When they arrived at the park, they entered the restroom. And there Morgan made an unsuccessful attempt to attack Peyton because they became a too nervous to go in for the kill. The knife that was taken from Morgan's house was concealed in

her pants waistband. Anisa then suggested that they play hide and seek in the park's wooded area. Once they were in the woods, Anisa told Peyton to lie on the ground and cover herself in sticks and leaves and stuff to hide. And Peyton said, It was really just a trick to get me down there. After Anisa signaled Morgan, Morgan then jumped on Peyton and started stabbing her. Peyton was stabbed a total of 19 times. Later, Morgan described the incident as weird. She felt no remorse at all.

Peyton's last words to her former best friend before they left her there was, I trusted you and I hate you. When Morgan and Anisa left, Peyton crawled to an opening in the forest and moved there using trees as support before finally collapsing on some grass. It was around 10 o'clock in the morning when a bicyclist found her body with stab wounds covering her arms, legs, and torso. He called 911 for help, and they quickly responded to this situation. Thankfully, Peyton had survived the stabbing and was alive to tell the whole story. She informed the responding police officers that the person who attacked her was her best friend Morgan and then another girl had also been there with her.

After being transported to the hospital, Peyton was immediately taken for her. treatment and surgery. After completing their mission, the two girls reportedly sped off through the forest in search of Slender Man. According to Rolling Stone, the mythical home of Slender Man is someplace in Wisconsin's Nicollett National Forest, and of course, the girls tried to find where the Slender Man was. Morgan and Anisa were picked up shortly after. The girls were charged with attempted first-degree murder and spent the following 14 months at a juvenile detention center where they were kept apart. Morgan underwent a psychological evaluation at Winnebago Mental Health Institution for four months. Years earlier, Morgan's father received a schizophrenia diagnosis, and like him, she also received the

same. However, a number of sources noted that Morgan's diagnosis was unusual for someone or age. Dr. Kenneth Casimir testified that Morgan had a long history of auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations. Investigators found notebooks in Morgan's bedroom and school locker, which contained drawings of Slender Man with phrases, I want to die and help me escape my mind. They searched her computer and found results on internet searches, such as how to get away with murder and what kind of insane am I? Morgan was also identified as having oppositional defiant disorder, which is characterized by antisocial behavior and refusal to follow rules in addition to her schizophrenia. More disturbingly,

Morgan admitted that if Slender Man had ordered her to break into a home and stab someone, she would have done it without a second thought. Staff at the detention facility said they observed Morgan conversing with people who weren't even there. She also ate her meals while crouched down, kneeling on the floor with her back to the door. Anisa, on the other hand, was described as a model inmate. The New York Times had said that she excelled in school and served as a big sister to other inmates. She reportedly also didn't want anything to do with Morgan. Anisa once had a breakdown and was placed on suicide watch after a group of girls attacked her.

Anisa was later on diagnosed with shared psychotic disorder. The American Psychological Association defines this as, a disorder in which the essential feature is an identical or similar delusion that develops an individual who is involved with another individual who already has a psychotic disorder with prominent delusions. Shared psychotic disorder can involve many people, but is most commonly seen in relationships of only two. So in short, Anise's mental state made her

susceptible to Morgan's paranoid delusions. Anisa even admitted that she wanted to prove the existence of the Slender Man. No matter how twisted a delusion appears to one person, it can sometimes give the believer a false sense of security. Morgan and Anisa appear to have expressed a desire to escape the real world. Belief in Slender Man, however strange it may appear to others, offered them just that. Morgan and Anisa both went on trial in 2017, where they were both tried as adults. Morgan was found to be competent to stay on trial because she no longer displayed severe psychotic symptoms. She was still hearing voices, though. Her doctors testified on her behalf.

The jury found her not criminally responsible for her actions. She then received a 40-year sentence in a mental institution. At the end of the trial, Morgan cried as she said, I just want to let Bella and her family know, I'm sorry. I never meant this to happen. The jury also found Anisa wasn't responsible for her actions due to shared psychotic disorder. Anisa was sentenced to the maximum 25 years in a mental health facility in December of 2017 after pleading guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree intentional homicide.

Following the stabbing, the creepy pasta was blocked across the Waukesha School District. Slender Man creator Eric Nunson said the day after the stabbing, I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin, and my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this terrible act. Creepypasta themselves issued a statement confirming that Slender Man is not real and organized a fundraiser for Peyton in response to this horrific and tragic event. On June 13th and 14th of 2014, members of the creepypasta community called a 24-hour live stream on YouTube to raise money for the stabbing victim.

The purpose of the stream, according to Joe Jzwowski, an administrator on a creepypasta website, was to show that members of the community cared about the victim and did not condone real-world violence because they enjoyed fiction that contained violence. Following her terrifying experience, Peyton is moving on and wishes to pursue a career in medicine. Five years after the near-fatal attack, Peyton says, parents need to talk to their kids directly, saying, this is not real, this is forgery. When Payton was asked what she would say to Morgan, she said she would have initially thanked her, and that she has the life she lives now because of what she did.

Recently, in September of 2021, an unexpected turn of events happened. Anisa was released from Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Anisa had petitioned the court earlier that year, stating that she was deeply regretful, but that she had exhausted all the resources available for her at the Health Institute. The court deemed her fit for release in July of 2021 after determining that there was no evidence that she would pose a threat to society. Anisa even wrote a letter saying, I am not saying I am finished with my treatment. I am saying that I have exhausted all the resources available to me at Winnebago Mental Health Institute.

Anisa was released to her father's custody with the following conditions. She must live at her father's house where her brother and father's girlfriend also lived. She's not permitted to use the internet. She's not permitted to spend the night anywhere other than her father's house. She must participate in 20 hours of structured, social, or vocational activities each and every week. Anisa is considering furthering her education and working with that. risk youth. She will be monitored with a GPS tracking device and will be supervised with case managers until she's 37 years old. This case was truly something out of the ordinary, but in many similar

cases, all signs point to untreated mental illness. Just like when a 13-year-old girl in Ohio, who was reportedly obsessed with Slender Man, attempted to stab her mother about a week after the near-fatal attack on Peyton. In the case of the Slender Man stabbing, the root cause is clear, and it isn't the internet. Each story revolved around a child suffering from severe mental illness. A young girl will not wake up one day and decide to stab someone because of a story she read online. All we know is that the Slender Man, as fictional as he is, took part in a very real event.

So that's going to do it, guys, for this week's episode of Everytown. Remember to check out this video on our YouTube. YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. You can also check out our other podcast called Scary Mysteries if you want more stories from us that we're putting out every single week. Don't forget to come back here next week for more scary, strange, and mysterious stories because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.