In 2014, two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, lured their sixth-grade classmate into a quiet Wisconsin park with murder on their minds. Geyser and Weier shared a fascination with internet ‘creepypasta’ stories and became fixated on the supernatural figure of Slender Man.
The two girls fell into a shared delusion that Slender Man was real, and would attack them and their families if they didn’t sacrifice a victim in his name. They selected their classmate Payton Leutner and told her they were playing hide-and-seek. As soon as she was hidden, the two girls pounced, viciously stabbing Leutner nineteen times.
