MURDER FOR SLENDERMAN How two 12-year-olds became so obsessed with horror character Slenderman that they tried to kill.
A documentary explores how two 12-year-olds became so obsessed with horror character Slenderman that they tried to kill
It began with a slumber party to celebrate Morgan Geyser’s 12th birthday. Then Morgan and her friends Anissa Weier, 12, and Payton Leutner, 12, spent the morning of May 31, 2014, eating strawberries and doughnuts before heading out to a park near Morgan’s home in Waukesha, Wisconsin. But the hours that followed played out like a terrifying horror film. By that afternoon Anissa and Morgan were sitting in separate police interrogation rooms, explaining how they had stabbed Payton 19 times and left her for dead in the woods. “Morgan handed me the knife,” Anissa told Waukesha police. “I give it back to her and say, ‘You do it. Go ballistic. Go crazy.’” In another room, Morgan told detectives how it felt to stab Payton, a friend she had known since Year 4. “I didn’t know what I did. It just sort of happened,” she said. “It didn’t feel like anything. It was like air.”
Although Payton miraculously survived —crawling through dense woods to a nearby bike path where a passerby called 911—the crime shocked authorities, especially after police discovered the girls’ apparent motive: to win favour with the fictional internet horror character Slenderman. Now the bizarre case is the subject of an HBO documentary, Beware the Slenderman (airing on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 8.30 PM on Showcase), which attempts to decipher how two seemingly normal tween girls could do something so horrific. “Of course they’re guilty, but how much do we hold them accountable?” asks director Irene Taylor Brodsky, who points to the girls’ ages and questions the impact the internet has on the developing brains of tweens. “It really could be any of our kids.”
Chillingly, Anissa and Morgan do seem to have been typical 12-year-olds. “[Anissa] was in a Girl Scout troop in elementary school,” Anissa’s father, Bill Weier, who appears in the documentary, tells WHO. “She liked animals. She liked roller-skating.” Anissa and Morgan lived in the same apartment complex and took the same bus to school. Their bond grew tighter as the months passed and they developed an obsession for Slenderman, who, they later told police, would harm them or their families if they didn’t kill in his name. Although Morgan, according to her parents, has now been diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia, Anissa has no history of mental illness. “Anissa had some issues making friends and all she wanted was friends,” says psychologist Dr Abigail Baird. “And she happened to make friends with someone who maybe wasn’t the most grounded in reality.”
Payton, who was stabbed in the liver, stomach and heart, is now in high school and, along with her parents, declined to participate in the documentary. But Anissa’s father says they are all constantly in his thoughts. “I think about them every day of my life,” Bill Weier says. “As much as I would like to be able to talk to them about this, No. 1, how do you start that conversation? And No. 2, would it even be right?”
Meanwhile, Anissa, now 15, and Morgan, now 14, are in different facilities awaiting trial on attempted first-degree intentionalhomicide charges later this year. They are not allowed contact with each other or access to the internet, according to a court order. At the time of their arrest Anissa told police she was conflicted about trying to kill Payton. “The bad part of me wanted her to die,” she said. “But the good part of me wanted her to live.” Morgan, she says, convinced her that the attack would prompt Slenderman to take them to his mansion in a neighbouring forest. “Morgan said, ‘Slender, if you’re listening, please help us,’ ” Anissa recounted. “And he didn’t do anything. Nothing happened.”
“It really could be any of our kids” —director Irene Taylor Brodsky