On May 31^st, 2014, Payton Leutner was stabbed 19 times by her two best friends in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier were only 12 years old when they lured Payton into the woods and attacked her. Once they stabbed her, they left her in the woods injured and bleeding. Payton was lucky enough to survive this terrible attack. This case became known as the Slenderman stabbing because Morgan and Anissa were convinced that slender man was real, and they had to kill their friend in order to please the fictional character.

In 2009, Slenderman became a popular fictional character who stalks children and has been told in many horror stories. He is a faceless, tall and skinny man that is quite horrifying in images. The investigators who questioned Morgan and Anissa explained how they plotted to kill Payton and uncovered how Slender Man became the reason for the motivation to kill their friend. The two girls shared to police that they have read a scary story about Slender Man. Morgan stating in her interview that they had to kill Payton or “he’d kill our families”. Anissa also stating in her interview, “I actually thought that he was real. Because I saw him, we were like, talking on the bus. I look out the window and I see this thing standing like this, with tendrils, looks exactly like a tree. There and gone like that.” Morgan and Anissa have planned three different attacks to murder Payton. They even talked about their plans in public, whispering and using different code words such as “knife” was code word for “cracker”.  The first plan to murder Payton was when they all three had a sleepover, Weier said that Morgan Geyser suggested they duct tape Leutner’s mouth shut in the middle of the night so when she was sleeping, they could stab her in the neck. They decided to not go on with the plan because they were “too sleepy and tired”. The next morning, they wake up and sorted their second plan stating that they were going to kill her in a bathroom stall at the park. This plan also did not work out because they were too nervous. The last plan later that day was to take Payton out to the woods which they then stabbed her 19 times.

The defense stated that Morgan and Anissa had mental illnesses which is the reason why they tried to kill their friend. The two girls pleaded guilty to their charges of first-degree attempted murder and were both sentenced to 30-40 year commitment in a state institution.