They Did It For Slenderman

in May of 2014, three 12 year old girls went into the Wisconsin woods to play a game. Only the three girls were not all playing the same game. One girl would leave with 19 stab wounds as her attackers fled on foot to "join slender-man in his mansion”. Click the link to lead more about Murder Squared:https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flinktr.ee%2FMurdersquaredpodcast&e=ATOw9LpvEABKq6yUdPEi_wFB2FfTo5dKQP0pCdsl5jfDV0TRnYjgCIQCRdBJHWGfb_Wl0R7XFSN_HaVmHkySSewYhoVtTHJj-vj1mN8&s=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode Transcript

(00:31):
Hello, Hello, my wonderful Patreons. Welcome back to another bonus episode for
you all. Today's episode is goingto go along with the creepy Pasta that
was also put out. So whatfor this case, We're going to be
talking about the slender Man murders.You may have heard of this one before.

(00:54):
This happened in twenty fourteen, soonly about eight years ago, not
that long at all. So ifyou're ready, get squared away and let's
talk murder. So do you knowwho slender Man is? He is a

(01:17):
supernatural phenomenon that took on the internetin twenty thirteen, fourteen, and some
people still write creepy pasta stories abouthim today. So slender Parent is supposed
to be a supernatural figure that standsbetween four and eighteen feet tall. He

(01:38):
lives deep in the woods, andhe takes children. His fictional character has
no face, just completely white fromthe front of his face to the back
of his head, and he alwayswears a suit. Slender Man is said
to have extremely long fingers and hastentacles that come out from his So what

(02:00):
slender Man is completely fictional, butin the minds of young teenagers and adolescents
and especially rearing eight years ago thatwasn't the case. To all, the
case that I'm about to tell youis one hundred percent real. So we're
gonna start at a sleep over,and we're going back to May thirty first

(02:23):
of two fourteen, so eight yearsago to the day from when this episode
will come out on Patreon, andwe're gonna go to Waukeshaw, Wesisconsin.
And at the sleep over, itis twelve year old Morgan Geyser's birthday and
she's celebrating it with her two bestfriends, Annessa Wire and Peyton Lightner.

(02:50):
Now Peyton and Annessa are not reallyfriends, they just hang out with one
another whenever they're both hanging out withMorgan. So this sleepover started on Friday,
May thirtieth, and the girls kickedoff the night at this skating rine.
So they were going to skate fora couple hours and then they were

(03:12):
going to be going back and stayingat Morgan's house. But the next morning,
on Saturday, May thirty first,Morgan wanted them to go to the
park together. Now, normally thispark, she's not allowed to go to
it by herself. Once again,she's only twelve and Angie is a little
skeptical at first because she normally doesn'tlet Morgan go do these things by herself.

(03:35):
But same time, she's trying tobe the cool mom and let the
kids have a little free will.So Morgan suggests that when they get there
that they play hide and seek withone another. But when they get into
the woods to play hide and seek, they decide that Peyton is going to
be the seeker, She's going todo the counting, and they're going to

(03:58):
hide. But when Peyton turns aroundto start counting, Anessa screams now and
then Morgan jumps on top of Paytonand starts stabbing her repeatedly. She stabbed
her over and over again. FinallyMorgan gets off of her, and Peyton

(04:19):
just looks at them and says,why I trust you guys, Why would
you do this to me? Thegirls just stared at her as she laid
in the middle of the forest floorand bled. They tell her, you
need to lay there and be stilland we'll go get you help. But
the girls never intended to get herhelp. Instead, they had already devised

(04:43):
a plan ahead of time to runaway together, and they were going to
run away to slender Man's mansion,so we're going to go to where someone
finds Payton. Payton, it gatheredthe strength she had. She was holding
onto trees as she made her wayout of the forest. After she didn't

(05:04):
hear their voices or footsteps anymore,and she laid down in tall grass.
And this is where Greg Steinberg wouldfind Payton at eight a m. In
the morning. He had been outin the park riding his bike when he
found her lying in grass covered inblood. He knew that she had been
stabbed, but he didn't know howmany times, and he didn't know by

(05:27):
what. This was a twelve yearold girl laying there, bleeding and barely
conscious. So Greg calls nine oneone. He tells them she's alive and
she's awake, but she's hurt.Greg offers her water and ask if she
was okay. Peyton, through gaspin tears, says that she can't breathe.
She's having a hard time getting air, and he tells her to hold

(05:49):
on. The police were coming,and then he asked her, who did
this to you? And she says, my friend, my friend Morgan.
While Payton is laying there struggling tobreathe, and trying to talk to Greg
the best she can, please arriveon this scene. So they arrive on

(06:10):
scene and they are talking to hernow trying to get what happened, and
through all this, the ambulance arrivesquickly thereafter, so they have to cut
Peyton's clothes from her body, andthey ask what caused this, and she
tells them it was a knife,and she uses her hands to show how
big this knife was and from theway that the police officer describes it later

(06:33):
in interviews, she said the bladealone was at least three to four inches
long. She had been stabbed inher chest, her arms, and stomach
and legs. Peyton was not stablewhen she finally arrived at the hospital,
so why doctors go to work tostop the bleeding and stabilize Payton. A

(06:55):
detective is on her way to Peyton'shome to tell her mother and father what
has happened. Peyton's mom is beinginformed that her daughter was attacked at a
slumber party by her best friend andthis just didn't make any sense, but
she gathered her things and she arrivedto the hospital just before Payton was wheeled
into surgery. She looked scared.She had been crying and she could barely

(07:18):
breathe. This is when Stacy Peyton'smom was informed that Peyton had been stabbed
a total of nineteen times. So, while Peyton is in surgery, police
are going to Morgan's house and Morgan'snot at home, which at this point
they had no idea where she was, and they didn't actually know that there

(07:42):
was another girl with Morgan because throughher tears and gasp, she only mentioned
Morgan. Angie, Morgan's mom,tells them that Morgan, Payton, and
Nanessa are all at the park.Why are they there looking for Morgan?
And they tell her, you don'tunderstand there has been an accident at the

(08:03):
park. Police realize that there isanother girl with Morgan, and they truly
don't know is Annessa in danger oris she an accomplice? And Payton hadn't
mentioned anyone else, so it washard for them to figure out what was
going on. So investigators get informationfrom Angie and they call Anessa's parents and
from there, Anessa's mom goes throughher room exactly what I would do.

(08:28):
She's tearing her room apart. Herphone is at home, and she starts
looking through her phone and in thenotes section of her phone, she finds
a goodbye letter in her phone andit's talking about how she loved everyone and
she don't want to hurt anyone,but she's leaving. So first things first,
Payton's in surgery and they are notsure if she's gonna make it.

(08:50):
It's touch and go. She's atwelve year old with nineteen stab wounds,
and they have to find another setof twelve year old girls and at least
one that they know is responsible forit. So they put out an APB
on Morgan and Annessa, and theyhad been gone for this point. At
five hours, police eventually find themsitting on the side of a highway.

(09:13):
They were calm, but they werecovered in dirt and they had bloodstains all
over their clothes. Annessa was scared. She was scared that all of this
had happened, that she had beenaway for however many hours at this point,
and that she hadn't talked to herparents yet. But Morgan was not.
Morgan was calm, and once thepolice get them back to the station,

(09:39):
they go ahead and start photographing them, read them their miranda rights,
and they're going to start interviews veryquickly because in the state of Wisconsin,
police can question a minor without theconsent or the presence of a parent or
a guardian. So in separate rooms, detectives interview you both Annessa and Morgan.

(10:01):
So police know that Morgan is themain attacker, so they straight out
I ask Morgan, why did youstab Peyton? And Morgan says, to
kill her. It's the truth,so I might as well say it right.
It was to kill her. Andthe interviewer asked, but why Peyton.

(10:22):
Isn't she your best friend? AndMorgan says, I didn't pick her
whoever Anessa was talking about did.She then goes on to say Annessa just
made it sound necessary. So betweenthe interviews that are going on with the
Morgan and Annessa, this is thestory that investigators gather. So they tell

(10:43):
Peyton that they are going to gobirdwatching in the woods. So when they
get so far into the woods,they make the proposal that they play hide
and go seek. So once thegame begins, Annessa screams now and Morgan
jumps on top of Peyton and beginsstabbing her. Peyton quickly goes into shock

(11:03):
and once Morgan has stabbed Peyton nineteentimes. She gets off of her and
then stands next to Annessa. Thetwo at twelve year olds stare at Peyton
while she's just laying there, askingthem why why would they do this to
her. They then told her thatthey are going to go get help,

(11:24):
but as we know, they didnot go get help. They were running
away. We know that Peyton waitsuntil they leave. She gets up and
walks out of the woods. Sheuses trees to help her get out,
and that is when Greg finds herlying in the grass. So Annessa and
Morgan were actually tried as adults inthis case, and surprisingly enough, Peyton

(11:48):
survives this attack. So at Annessa'strial, the jury deliberated for eleven hours
and Annessa had pled guilty. Atthis point when the trial happens, she's
a little bit older and she's understoodmore about what happened that day and why
she did what she did. Shewas diagnosed with a depressive delusional disorder,

(12:13):
and this was she did plead guilty, and she was able to receive a
not guilty verdict because of mental diseaseor defect, but she was sent to
a mental institution. So the prosecutionwanted her to go to this institution for
twenty five years, and the judgeagreed, but Annessa was set free from

(12:41):
this institution on September thirteenth, justlast year, in two twenty one.
She is now nineteen years old andshe has to have GPS monitoring at all
times, and she's living with herdad. So Morgan was actually dinosed with
early onset schizophrenia, which her fatheractually had. He was a schizophrenic as

(13:07):
well, So as early as shehad been diagnosed with it at the age
of thirteen, this was almost unheardof because normally schizophrenia makes its appearance in
your mid to late twenties. Sothe defense cut a deal with the prosecution
that she would serve forty years ina menstal institution. And this was because

(13:28):
Morgan was the one holding the knife. Even though this was Anessa's idea.
Morgan was the one holding the knife, and she is the one who stabbed
who she called her best friend nineteentimes. Now Morgan is still there in
this mental institution and Peyton is stillhealing mentally. It's eight years later,

(13:52):
and she says that when they getout that she won't be scared and that
her life won't change it all.So Dan Klein was the first officer to
arrive on scene when Peyton was foundlying in the grass, and he served
in twenty twenty as the resource officerat Peyton's school, and they had this

(14:15):
little connection with one another. Hewas the first officer on scene when she
had been attacked, and he saidhe just felt like he got that job
for a reason and that he wassupposed to help look after her. So
Morgan's family has actually moved away fromthe community since her arrest and since she
was sent to this mental institution,but they're still fighting for her release and

(14:37):
they will continue to do so untilshe's up for parole again in two thousand
and twenty four. I did findout, however, that when they were
both sent to a mental institution,it was the same one. So from
the time that they were sentenced untiltwo twenty one, when Ananessa got out,

(14:58):
they were both at the Winna Baygo At Mental Institution in Wisconsin.
And since Morgan has been at thisinstitution, she's actually wrote Payton an apology
letter. And while Peyton knows thatwhat caused this attack was a Morgan's untreated
mental illness. She still says thatthat's what made her dangerous. But at
the end of the day, theletter's a nice gesture, but it's just

(15:20):
words on a piece of paper.It doesn't solve anything, it doesn't do
anything. All it is is wordson a piece of paper to her.
And in an interview with at twentytwenty, the reporter asked, what would
you want to say to her?If Morgan was here right now? What
would you say to her? Andwhat Peyton says, I think surprises everyone.

(15:43):
She says, I would want tothank her because of the life I
have now. It is truly howI feel. I wouldn't be who I
am and I love who I amwithout this having happened to me. And
those are just very strong words comingfrom now a nineteen year old girl.

(16:10):
All Right, you guys, thanksfor coming along for another Patreon episode.
I do want to talk a littlebit more about their obsession with slender Man.
So this obsession started with Annessa,and Annessa was reading everything she could
on the internet, looking at creepypasta wiki sites, going on Reddit,

(16:34):
doing anything and everything she could toget her hands on more material. There's
obviously tons of photoshopped pictures out thereabout slender Man, and those are the
things that her and Morgan became obsessedwith. They said when they couldn't find
the girls and the police and parentsand everything were searching through their rooms,

(16:55):
there was so many drawings, somany things about slender Man in their rooms,
like tucked in their drawers and theirclosets and their notebooks about slender Man,
that it was scary. So thisis just like something that they had
become obsessed with, and part ofAnnessa's disorder that she was diagnosed with says

(17:17):
that basically they were feeding off ofeach other's madness. So according to Annessa
in the interview, when they firstarrest her and do their interrogation, she
tells them that she thought if theykilled Peyton, that slender Man would see
them worthy and that she would beable to her and Morgan go and live

(17:38):
in slender Man's mansion. And theyactually talk about attacks that they had tried
to do on Payton before they actuallyattacked her. So I'm going to talk
about those for a little bit.So these girls had been planning to kill
Peyton for six months, So atfirst the two plan to wake up that

(18:02):
morning at two am, and theyset an alarm on Morgan's iPad. Morgan
was going to sleep with headphones onthat was so it didn't wake Painting up,
And when the alarm rang, theyhad planned on duct tape in her
mouth and then slitting her throat andstabbing her in the neck and then leaving
that morning. But when Morgan's iPadwent off at two am, her Nanessa

(18:23):
were too tired. And in thisinterview when she talks about this, talking
about stabbing her friend in the neck, she says, we were just too
tired. I guess it was fromgoing to Skyland earlier. We just couldn't
do it. And she's so nonchalantabout everything. It's, honestly, it's
very chilling hearing this honestly little girltalk about this. So Annessa had brought

(18:47):
up the idea that if they knockher out first, it would be easier
for them to kill her. Sowhen they first get to the park,
they go to a bathroom, andwhen they're in the bathroom, Annessa takes
her bow and shoves it at Payton'shead and she tries to make this look
like an accident, and what shedoes this There's a concrete wall behind Payton.

(19:08):
So her idea was if she hitsher head into this concrete wall,
she'll knock out and they can doit in the bathroom. And in the
interview she talks about how there's adrain in the bathroom, so she's like,
that would have been better for theblood to go down than to be
in the woods. But when shedoes this, it doesn't knock painting now
or knock her unconscious. So becausethis doesn't work, this is when they

(19:30):
come up with this plan to gointo the woods. They had kind of
started walking ahead of pay In tomake this plan hushly and quickly together.
And when they had been making plans, they had been doing this, like
I said, for six months,and most of this planning took place on
their bus after school on the wayhome. And what they would do is

(19:51):
they would come up with code wordsthose that other people didn't know what they
were talking about. So if they'retalking about stabbing, they would say a
cracker or something like that. Idon't remember the exact code words they use.
Cracker was used for something, butthat's what they would do, and
all along it had been Peyton thatthey were going to do this too,
and it was pretty much just becausePeyton trusted them and it would be easy

(20:15):
access. So that is the casethat I have for you this month.
It is definitely crazy, So untilnext time, stay square and I'll see
you next murder