A Normal Girl
Payton Leutner was a normal 12-year-old girl who loved playing with dolls and hanging out with her friends. On May 30, 2014, she got ready to celebrate her friend Morgan's birthday, but her life changed forever.
Peyton was actually really excited to go. The girls had planned to have pizza and go skating, so she got all her things ready, including her favorite doll, and headed to Morgan's for the sleepover she had been looking forward to for weeks.
Morgan Geyser
Payton and Morgan Geyser had been friends since the fourth grade. The two got to know each other because Peyton noticed that Morgan was sitting alone, so she decided to talk to her. For a long time, Peyton was Morgan's only friend.
Peyton was the only girl in their class who was kind enough to talk to Morgan and get to know her. The two became extremely close and Morgan even nicknamed Peyton "Bella" because of how adorable she was.
Anissa Weier
Payton and Morgan were best friends for two years, but when Morgan became friends with another girl, Anissa Weier, her friendship with Payton took a back seat. Morgan started to hang out with Anissa all the time instead of with Payton.
Morgan and Anissa became friends because they rode the bus every day together as they lived very close to each other. Anissa had very unusual interests, however, and she introduced Morgan to a world she had never heard of before.
Creepypasta
Anissa introduced Morgan to the Creepypasta Wiki. Creepypastas are horror legends that circulate the internet and are copied and pasted from site to site. These stories are intended to scare readers and are completely fictional.
Many people enjoy reading these stories because they are creepy and exciting. But these sites are meant for adults only because impressionable children can get the wrong idea about these stories.
Taking Them Seriously
The problem with Creepypastas is that many children on the internet started reading them and taking them seriously. They would believe that just because someone posted a story on the internet about a paranormal event, it meant that it was true.
This is what happened with Anissa and Morgan. They became obsessed with reading creepypastas and actually took them seriously. They slowly fell down a rabbit hole that would eventually suck them in and not let them out.
The Slenderman Phenomenon
Almost everyone has heard of Slenderman at this point, right? Well, this mysterious creature actually started out as a creepypasta. The story started spreading and many depictions and different works of fiction featuring Slenderman were created and eventually went viral.
Even a Slenderman video game was created, making the character even more popular among kids and teenagers. While most children only saw it as a fun, creepy form of entertainment, Anissa and Morgan really believed that Slenderman was real.
The Creature
Slenderman, as its name implies, is a tall, slim, humanoid that wears a black suit and has no face. He typically stalks and abducts his victims, who are usually children.
He has long, tentacle-like arms that extend to catch his prey, and he typically appears in dark forests or abandoned sites. Not only that, but he can teleport, making it almost impossible for his victims to escape.
Obsessed
Morgan became obsessed with Slenderman - even more than Anissa. She began sending Payton links to videos and posts about Slenderman to convince her that it was real, which terrified Payton.
Payton was so scared about the stories that Morgan told her that she actually told her mother about it. Her mom assured her that Slenderman was not real and that she shouldn't worry. But seeing that her friend was so obsessed with him made her have doubts.
Drifting Apart
Payton still wanted to maintain her friendship with Morgan, but this became increasingly difficult. Morgan became more and more obsessed with creepypastas and even told Payton that she could see Slenderman outside her window every night and even talk to him.
Not only that, but when the three of them were together, Morgan and Anissa were not nice to Payton. Anissa in particular did not like her and would always find a way to make Payton feel uncomfortable. Despite all of this, Payton still tried to maintain her friendship with Morgan.
Problematic
Anissa started going to Morgan and Payton's school in the sixth grade. She didn't fit in at all with her classmates because they all thought she was weird. She also didn't make much of an effort to make friends and was pretty hostile to her classmates.
She was very smart and had good grades, but was suspended a few times for being aggressive to her classmates. Morgan was her only friend, and the more time they spent together, the more they started to act in a similar way.
Lack Of Empathy
Morgan wasn't as problematic as Anissa was. In fact, she behaved pretty well at school and didn't pick fights with anyone. However, it was always hard for her to make friends, and her mother noticed something about her from an early age.
According to her mother, Morgan always displayed a lack of empathy for others, which is perhaps the reason why it was hard for her to make friends. This made her feel lonely, and when she became friends with Anissa, she finally found someone who understood her.
Praising Slenderman
It is not known where they got these ideas from or whether they just made it up, but Morgan and Anissa were convinced that Slenderman and the other creepypastas all lived in a mansion together just a few hours away from the girls' home in Wisconsin.
They believed that they had to kill someone to impress Slenderman so that he would let them live in his mansion. They had to pay tribute to him so that they could join him and all the other creepypastas. So, the girls planned this murder months in advance.
The Plan
Every year for her birthday, Morgan's parents allowed her to invite two girls over for the night, so this would be the perfect time to kill Payton. The girls exchanged emails over the course of a few months in which they planned how they would do it.
They even used code words so that they wouldn't get caught. The plan was to celebrate Morgan's birthday and at some point lure Payton into a forest where they would kill her and then they would travel to Slenderman's mansion for their reward.
Girls Being Girls
On Morgan's birthday, her parents took the three girls skating. Then, they all had pizza and went to Morgan's house where they played video games. They were doing stuff that typical 12-year-old girls do, and nobody had any idea what Morgan and Anissa would do the next day.
They first thought about killing Payton while she was asleep, but they decided to postpone their evil plan until the next morning. The next day, the girls had breakfast and told Morgan's mom that they would go play at the park. Before leaving, Morgan took a knife from her kitchen and hid it in her jacket.
Something's Strange
Anissa and Morgan always acted strange, but this time, Payton sensed that something was very wrong. They lured Payton into the park restrooms and told her she should lay on the floor and try to sleep. Payton thought this was extremely strange and of course, couldn't fall asleep.
But she sensed that something was wrong, so she decided to cooperate with them so as not to make them angry. Payton couldn't fall asleep, so Morgan punched her in the face, hoping to knock her out. This didn't work, and the three girls left the bathroom.
No Way Out
Payton didn't want to leave because she was afraid the girls would hurt her even more. She decided to go along with the weird things they were asking her to do just to get it over with and eventually go home. She had no idea that Anissa and Morgan were planning on killing her.
The girls wanted Payton to fall asleep because they believed it would be easier to kill her that way, but since this didn't work, they didn't know what to do. The two girls walked away from Payton to discuss who would actually stab her, and they decided that Morgan should do it.
Into The Woods
After the strange situation in the bathroom, the girls pretended everything was fine and told Payton that they wanted to go into the woods to play hide and seek. The girls lured Payton deeper and deeper into the woods until they found the perfect spot to kill their friend.
Again, Morgan pulled Anissa aside to discuss who should do it. Anissa insisted that Morgan be the one, but she had second thoughts. Eventually, she agreed that she would do it only when Anissa told her to. Once they went back to Payton, Anissa said: "Do it, now. Go ballistic, go crazy."
The Attack
Morgan lunged at Payton and knocked her down to the floor. She then got on top of her and whispered "I'm sorry" into her ear before stabbing her 19 times. Meanwhile, Anissa had her back turned so she wouldn't see what was happening.
But after all of this, Payton was still alive. She gathered enough strength to tell Morgan "I trusted you. I hate you!" as the girls walked away from her, leaving her to die in the woods alone.
Struggling
Payton found the strength to somehow crawl towards the road and fought for her life as hard as she could. Just as she was about to lose consciousness, a cyclist saw her and called the police. Luckily, she was saved.
She was even awake before going into surgery, so she was able to tell police that her friends Morgan and Anissa were the ones who attacked her. Now, the police had to find them.
Finding Them
It wasn't hard for the police to find the girls because they were on foot. They were immediately taken into custody and it was clear they had who they were looking for: their clothes were stained with blood and Morgan had the bloody knife in her purse.
When asked why they tried to kill their friend and whether they felt any remorse, they both stated that they did not regret it because what they did was necessary. The police were shocked to see two 12-year-old girls speak so coldly about almost murdering their friend.
Evidence
During interrogation, Morgan threw Anissa under the bus and claimed that she had also stabbed Payton. She had no idea that Payton had miraculously survived and would tell the police exactly what happened.
The police also found many Slenderman drawings made by Morgan and Barbie dolls on which she practiced how she would stab Payton.
The Trial
It was decided that the girls would be tried for first degree murder as adults, meaning that they could potentially spend many years in prison. The two girls pleaded guilty but testified against each other in order to get a more favorable sentence.
Anissa was declared mentally ill and was sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital, while Morgan was sentenced to 40 years in a similar institution. Because of their mental illness, they weren't found criminally responsible.
The End
The sentencing upset Payton's family because they believed the girls knew what they were doing and only used Slenderman as an excuse. Meanwhile, Payton will spend the rest of her life remembering that horrible day.
Many people also blamed creepypastas for 'brainwashing' children, but should internet users be blamed for the actions of others? Why weren't the girls' parents monitoring what they were doing on the internet in the first place? What do you think about the outcome of the case?