Morgan Geyser, now 15, began sobbing in court on Oct. 5 after Judge Michael Bohren asked her to recount a 2014 stabbing attack on a classmate, Payton Leutner. At the time of the horrific incident, Morgan and Payton were just 12 years old, and Morgan said she carried out the attack in order to please the fictional horror character Slender Man. Co-defendant, Anissa Weier, has also admitted she had a role in the attack. “Anissa and I took [Payton] in the forest and said that we were going to play hide and seek,” Morgan cried during her plea hearing. “Anissa said that she couldn’t do it and that I had to.”
As Morgan visibly became emotional, according to CBS News, the judge asked her how she attacked Payton. Morgan replied, “I tackled her. I stabbed her.” Judge Bohren proceeded to ask, WHERE the young girl had stabbed her “friend.” “Everywhere,” Morgan said. When asked how many times she stabbed the victim, Morgan responded, “19.” While Morgan was reportedly upset while recounting the horrific crime, during that awful night, she seemingly couldn’t have cared less about what she was doing. After all, once Morgan finished stabbing Payton, she and Anissa left the victim bleeding in the woods.
“Anissa told her to lie down so she wouldn’t lose blood so quickly, and told her to be quiet, and we left,” Morgan told the court. The teen’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, claimed his client is in fact remorseful for the attack and wrote a “very powerful letter” of apology to the victim, which she hopes can be delivered to Payton one day. Anthony also said she wrote the letter without prompting from anyone. Based on her tears in court, Morgan may very well be incredibly sorry. However, prosecutors still asked the judge on Oct. 5 to sentence Morgan to 40 years in a mental hospital.
As part of a plea deal, the judge accepted that Morgan is not guilty by reason of insanity. As a result, the teen will undergo a doctor’s evaluation by Nov. 13. As for a sentencing hearing, that will be scheduled at a later time. Just last month, a jury determined Anissa was mentally ill at the time of the attack. She now faces at least three years in a mental hospital, and she too will be sentenced at a later date. Meanwhile, Payton, who miraculously survived the attack by crawling out of the trees and flagging down a passing cyclist, was happy to avoid a trail.
“Though we do not believe that an institution is where these attempted murderers belong, the current legal system does not favor victims in this situation,” a statement from Payton’s family read. “With this closure, our daughter is a heroic survivor — and no longer a victim.” Morgan and Anissa told detectives they felt they had to kill Payton in order to become Slender Man’s “proxies,” or servants, and protect their families from him.
Slender Man is a fictional character who is believed to have been created in 2009 with an online post. He’s depicted as a mysterious specter with a long, lean figure and a black suit with a featureless white face. He’s often edited into everyday images of children at play. A psychiatrist hired by Morgan’s attorneys testified that she believed she could communicate telepathically with Slender Man and could see and hear other fictional characters, such as unicorns and characters from Harry Potter and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Tell us, HollywoodLifers — do you think it’s fair Morgan serves time in a mental hospital rather than in prison?
