EP11: "Don't Be Afraid \[stab\]...I'm Only A Little Kitty Cat"
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All right, welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia Podcast. I am your co-host, Tank Sinatra, here with my co-host... Investigator Slater. Shout out to Seattle, you werewolf-loving fucks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

That was a surprise for her. Sorry. I just threw that in there. Listen, the podcast is going well. You guys are really making us just, we put out a bonus episode. You know what I mean? Like that was not part of the plan. So we want to give you people what you want. And investigator Slater has been working her nose to the grindstone on this particular case that we're going to do tonight. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I'm,

for the first time excited about a case that I didn't pick or that's not Michael Jordan's father or whatever. You know what I mean? You came in, you were like, this case is, you know, here's what happened. You switch gears. And I like when people not make stuff up on the fly, but like,

Pivot. Pivot, and it comes from the heart because there's pressure, and it's like, no nonsense, no bullshit. Oh, yeah. Like, the deadline is approaching. We got to record. We got to get an episode out. And that comes through in anything, whether it's an album, a painting, a book, or whatever. I love that.

I started researching a different case for this week and then just had this like overwhelming feeling that I wanted to cover the case we're doing tonight. And I have just been in the weeds researching left, right, and center. Everything I can get my hands on, everything I can listen to, watch, read,

I have really just been all over this case. Thank God you love true crime. I do. I live for it. This, I mean, the podcast is like just a natural extension of your love for true crime. The podcast is me. Yeah, I know. It is. It's who I am. It's the life that chose me. Yeah, that's a Jay-Z line. I know. You know that.

Yeah, you're going to, I mean, you put all your effort into true crime. You love it and it's loving you back now. Really shout out to all the people who have been following the page, rating, sharing. We know, we have the analytics. And I want to read a review tonight for the people who are

writing reviews. Because if you are listening and you like this podcast, it's our job, me and Investigator Slater, to do the best podcast we can. And it's up to you to find us and then us to find you. That's how it works. This podcast is not going to be for everybody. I've been okay with that since before we even started it.

So I bust our chops about these, like maybe one or two bad reviews. And I liked them. It means that this person felt something she'll probably, or he will probably be back on another episode.

And if they're not, no real love lost because there are people who are enjoying it. And those are the people that I want to shout out. Love it. Five stars. LEC0019. This quickly became one of my comfort podcasts. I love their chemistry. I've already listened to each episode more than once. Yes. You are obsessed as I am with this shit. Join the club, LEC0019, because so have I.

Most of the reviews have been... Overwhelmingly positive. Amazing. And thank you to everyone who feels the way they feel and then takes the time to make it known to us. We see it. We read it. We feel it. We love you. So if you're feeling something listening to this, that's really all I care about. Whether it's delight from my jokes or horror from Investigator Slater's in-depth research, which by the way, after this sentence, we're going to the podcast...

You guys listening need to understand how much work she puts into these things. She said she was up at five o'clock every morning this week researching this case. And I think that goes back way. These aren't like, okay, let me take three hours and put this together. This is like some go on for a week. Some go on for, you know, at least a week, but like,

full-time job and then some probably. It is. Thanks for the shout out. But yeah, no, I put my heart and soul into this. And what I want to do is present these cases in a way, ideally, that people haven't heard it presented before. And also, listen, I'm an investigator and I need to show people something beyond what they can find by typing something in Google.

So this case tonight that you're going to present to us, you're excited about it. So I'm excited about it. So why don't you just start talking and I'll stop talking and then you listening, just keep doing whatever you've been doing. I've been waiting all week to hit this case. So let's go. On Saturday, May 31st, 2014, at approximately 9.50 a.m., a man named Greg Steinberg was enjoying a morning bike ride in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

That particular morning, Greg decided to take a different route through some brush in an area that was actually chained off. It's nothing short of miraculous that he made that choice that morning because lying in the grass was a young girl drenched in her own blood, bleeding out, who desperately needed help. The girl had just sustained 19 stab wounds to her body moments before her happenstance discovery.

The cyclist immediately called 911, and during this call, you can hear him comforting the wounded child, offering her some of his water, while saying, honey, he's coming, they'll be here any minute. Soon after Greg disconnected the 911 call, an ambulance arrived, and the events of what happened that morning broke the internet.

But before we discuss who this child is and why and how this violent attack occurred, I would like to first provide some background information that will set the stage for this really, really disturbing case. Wait, how old was the girl again? Twelve. Oh my God. Yeah. Who the fuck? I want to kill the other person. Buckle up because it's about to get freaky as fuck.

In 2009, which is five years prior to the incident just described, on an internet forum called Something Awful, a contest took place in which participants were asked to digitally transform ordinary photographs into images that could be passed off as authentic on various paranormal websites. So it was a Photoshop contest.

An individual named Eric Knudsen, who went by the username Victor Surge, entered the contest by submitting two photoshopped black and white photographs of children on a playground with a creepy, unnatural, or maybe supernatural looking figure standing in the background.

This figure was extraordinarily tall and slim, had long tentacle-like arms and spindly tentacles sprouting from his back. He wore a black and white suit and tie and had a white featureless face. Bro, are we about to talk about Slender Man? Yes! Yes, you know it! My kids are terrified of Slender Man. What? They've been terrified of Slender Man since...

2009? Or your kids weren't born yet. 2014? When this case broke? From the moment they became conscious as infants and started knowing, you know, Roblox and YouTube and Slender Man. And I know, I remember hearing it was like maybe a real thing, kind of, but not like nobody, whatever. But he became his own thing. You are going to be so...

into this case tonight. And it's probably actually going to hit you very hard since your kids are sort of like in this game. Are your kids scared of Slenderman? They're not scared of Slenderman, but they're scared of Momo. Have you heard of Momo? Yeah. Which we'll get into. My kids know all those terrifying creatures. Siren Head. My son talks a big game. I got him a costume for Halloween that was like terrifying. Head covering, like one piece suit.

had claws on the end of it and it was white with like gray whatever and uh he demanded it we were looking at amazon on costumes he's like that's the one i want that's what i want that's what i want he put it on looked in the mirror scared himself scared the shit out of himself ripped it off had my wife pray over it oh my god and they threw it in the garbage no i hand to god true she really pray over it oh yeah he was terrified just

I feel so bad for your son. Oh, he was so scared. He was so scared. He took one look at himself in the mirror and lost it. He probably felt like he was Spider-Man because that's the kind of costume it was. Thin, stretchy, whatever. And he felt like concealed because it zipped up over the head and the face was covered. Nope, not having it.

Maybe we'll use that image to promote the... It's not a bad idea. Did you get a picture? Oh, yeah. All right. Of course. Hell, yeah. Before, and I guess I didn't show it to him because he didn't want to rip it off at that point, but man, he was terrified of that thing. So the figure that I just described with the white featureless face and the tentacles and whatever, as Tank just indicated...

was Slender Man. And the featureless face is by far the creepiest aspect of the whole character because your brain decides what the face is or what the face represents or whatever. So whatever your deepest, darkest fear is somehow like manifests on that blank canvas and you're literally looking at your worst nightmare when you're looking at Slender Man. Oh, yeah.

The entrance of Slender Man to this contest, this online contest, was a bit unique in that it not only included the photoshopped pictures as required, but it also incorporated captions as well that formed an imaginative, freaky narrative. And this just totally leveled up Eric Knudsen's entry and catapulted Slender Man into the spotlight, where it became an internet sensation and went viral almost instantaneously.

Slender Man inspired people all around the globe to create fan art, short stories, films, YouTube videos, cosplay, and any other work of art and creativity that you can think of. That guy who, who was the guy who designed Slender Man? Eric Knudsen. Should be known, I mean, he should be in the Hall of Fame of the internet. He essentially is in this category, which I'm about to hit you with in a pop quiz. Sick.

So Slenderman was so big and popular that he birthed a whole new digital genre of horror fiction known as, pop quiz, flash fiction, creepypasta, or faghoot. Faghoot? False. Hold on a second. Not faghoot. It's not creepypasta. I don't know. Creepypasta? Yeah, it is creepypasta. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. No, so not only did he spawn a whole thing of creepypasta, he spawned something called copypasta. Because everyone was copying him? No, no, no. Copypasta is...

scary words that people will use on the internet that will, they'll change some words here and there to fit whatever they want it to mean. Like to match a photo? Not to match a photo. It's like a paragraph that you see over and over again and 95% of it, but like in one of the things, the guy is a Navy SEAL. In the next one, the guy is a chef or whatever. Right, right, right. But it's like,

Ominous, the paragraph. Okay. Interesting. I had never heard of it. Copypasta. Yeah. Well, creepypastas are horror-related legends that are shared around the internet. And part of what makes a creepypasta so terrifying is that it's often presented as real in the way that urban legends are. Right? So think about Bloody Mary, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster. We know intellectually and logically that none of these are real. But are you going to say Bloody Mary three times at midnight in front of your mirror? Sure.

So what'd you say? Bigfoot, Bloody Mary and Loch Ness Monster. Yeah. I feel like Bloody Mary is the only one that really chills me to my bones. Like Loch Ness Monster. I'm like, whatever. Because you're, you're entitled to that. But somebody else may say, you know what? Loch Ness Monster is the only one that chills me to my bone. Well, if you do, you know, that's what makes for horse racing. Explain that. That's the expression.

Because people bet on different horses. They have a different opinion, a different idea of which horse is going to win. So that, yeah. Okay. So Bloody Mary for me. Is your betting horse. I'll bet on that to scare the shit out of a kid. So fucking scary. Let me tell you something. I still will not stand in front of a mirror at midnight and say that. If you told me to do that, no way. I would, but I would be surprised when I didn't see Bloody Mary. Right. You almost expect it.

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So the phenomenon of Slender Man spread like wildfire and soon became a prominent part of popular culture, so much so that years later, Tank, your son is being scared to death by him. Yeah. And it's 2023, for those of you listening in 10 years or whatever. Right.

Now, while usually confined to the digital realm, Slender Man would occasionally have a more tangible impact on people's lives as evidenced by the aforementioned intro of the 12-year-old girl who suffered 19 stab wounds because it's related to Slender Man.

The child's name was Peyton Lutner. And to tell Peyton's story with respect to this case and to what happened to her, we really have to contemporaneously discuss another little girl named Morgan Geyser. Because for better or for worse, the two girls became forever entwined and had their lives irreparably changed as a result of Slender Man.

Peyton Lutner and Morgan Geyser had been acquaintances since kindergarten, but became instant besties in fourth grade after Peyton saw Morgan sitting by herself at lunch in the school cafeteria and decided to join her. Peyton's kindness sparked a friendship, and within that same school year, almost instantly, the girls became inseparable.

On the surface, they had a lot in common and they shared many interests. They both loved to draw. They both loved cats. And really, at 10 years old, not much else is needed to solidify a friendship. But when it comes to Morgan Geyser, there's a lot more than what meets the eye. And even at the tender age of 10, there were depths of psychological complexity that no one, not even her seemingly loving and attentive parents, knew existed.

Morgan's mother, Angie, maintains that Morgan was a genuinely happy and typical little girl. And this absolutely appears to be the case in home videos of Morgan. So you can find this footage online, like home videos from her mom of Morgan when she was a little girl growing up. She's playing with her American doll. She's playing with her cat. She's pretending to be a cat. She's just presenting as every kid does in home videos.

She even had like a Tupperware container on her head in one video when she's wearing her diaper and she like runs into a cabinet. And I literally have the same exact video of my son with a Halloween bucket on his head in his little diaper running in circles and then running into a wall. That sounds fun. Yeah, he was okay. In case anyone's concerned.

Young Morgan innocently and unabashedly believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, unicorns, the tooth fairy. She was just a typical kid, really, like on the surface. She was an excellent student and intensely creative. However, deep down, her mother, much more sinister. Yes. Morgan's mother, Angie, asserts that Morgan did have one very concerning thing

Let's hear it. Oh.

In public interviews, Angie cites which of the following examples as a time in which Morgan alarmingly demonstrated a lack of empathy as a young child. I hope I don't not get this because I'm a psychopath. A. What's empathy, first of all? Can you define it? No, I'm just kidding. Wow. I was like, I'm out of here. I don't even want to be near you.

A, the time in which Morgan was told that her grandmother died and she seemed genuinely confused by the sight of people crying over it, saying, quote, I don't understand why you're sad. She was alive and now she's just dead. B, Morgan would stand motionless, unmoved, and almost confused any time someone would embrace her or wish her well or extend her a compliment.

See, while watching the Disney movie Bambi, Morgan was completely unmoved by the death of Bambi's mom. Sorry if people have not seen Bambi and I just ruined it, but the mom dies. She gets shot by a hunter. It's fucking brutal. In fact, Morgan's only reaction was to say, run Bambi, run, get out of there, save yourself.

Um, I think it's the Bambi thing. It is the Bambi thing. And I'll tell you why. I saw Bambi as a child, right? And then years later, I heard people talking about Bambi and how sad it was and blah, blah, blah.

I do not remember it being said. Maybe I don't remember the movie. I mean, this is concerning shit. You talked to me about Lion King. I get it. Yes, I know. Okay, let me explain. His father dies. I cried. You know, whatever. Bambi, maybe I was too young. You may have been too young. I'm going to just have to say that so that I can continue sitting here and feeling safe. But for those who don't know the scene, Bambi and Bambi's mother, they're two little sweet, innocent deer.

running through the forest and you hear gunshots behind them. They're running from a hunter. Bambi has the sweetest, little, most innocent voice. And he's like, come on, mom, come on. And the mom's like, go Bambi, go. And they're running, running, running. And then you hear one. And then you just see Bambi by himself. And he gets inside of a cave. So Bambi was a boy? Yeah. I didn't even know that. That's how little I know about the movie. And he turns and he's like, mama, mama, we made it.

But mama's not there because mama didn't make it. So fuck off to anyone who didn't fucking lose their shit to that scene. Well, first of all, I was three. Well, you were not three because I'm younger than you and I watched it and I couldn't breathe. When did Bambi, that has nothing to do with anything. First of all, you don't know when my parents introduced me to Bambi. I did cry at anger management. So I do have, I do have feelings.

Maybe at that age, I was thinking maybe there was an overpopulation problem and it's really not that big of a deal that Bambi's mom got shot. I'm joking. I'm kidding. I live on a property where we have deer that walk around. It's the same deer all the time, mom and kids. And every time I tell people I live up here, they go, oh, Bambi.

does anybody hunt on your property? I go, no, dude, nobody hunts on my property. Can I come hunt on your property? Bro, you want to shoot the deer that we came to know and love on our property in front of my children? Did you name the deer? No.

I threw an apple at them once. Threw an apple at them. You are not looking great in this episode. I threw an apple at them. I threw carrots at them. I want to feed them and have them live here. How about you leave it out for them so that they can cautiously and tenderly approach it when they feel hungry instead of launching it at their face? Listen, at this point, they got to know who we are. You know what I mean? They see us all the time.

My question is, how come brother nature on Instagram gets to feed deer on his patio and I don't? What does he have that I don't? Tank, go feed your fucking deer. You have the same right. Yeah, I want them to come up to me though and eat the apple out of my hand. Oh, well maybe if you're not throwing it at their head, they will be, you know, feeling a little safer around you. Yeah, that's true. So the point of this whole Bambi...

Side track is that according to Angie, Morgan's mother, Morgan wasn't upset at all when the mother died in the movie. And at just four years old, Morgan articulated to her parents that she didn't see any point in Bambi getting upset over the death of his mother because there was nothing he could do about it. So like move on. And he's a cartoon. Very dark. You're not getting it.

I get it. I'm just feeling bad because I don't remember Bambi being sad, but maybe I never saw it. That sounds like a you problem. Oh, it sounds like a me problem for sure. I don't, I'm not denying that. I'm not denying that at all. I'm just saying, let's get back to the case so we don't piss anybody off. Morgan would also spend hours alone in her room speaking to imaginary friends, which in and of itself is not particularly concerning, but combined with some of her other close

we'll say, personality traits, including but not limited to her aforementioned lack of empathy. Second time this episode I said aforementioned.

It starts to bring into question the state of her psycho-emotional health. She also exhibited some bizarre attention-seeking behaviors at school. Morgan would refer to herself as a, quote, mental case and engage in which of the following inappropriate behaviors? Pop quiz. Oh, boy. A, she would bark like a dog, catch insects, and then fling them at classmates. Ha, ha, ha.

B, she would spontaneously jump up on her desk and serenade her class. Or C, she would walk into other classrooms, remove her shoes, and act like nothing was weird. Bark like a dog. Yes, you are two for two. Wow, yeah, I'm doing real well. Great job. That's very strange. Yeah, she was even suspended once for bringing a hammer to school. So we do see sort of these attention-seeking, unstable, concerning behaviors.

Now, on the opposite side of the empathy spectrum was Peyton Lutner. She was extraordinarily empathetic and loving and even spent her time volunteering at a cat sanctuary, which is a girl after my own heart, except swap out cats for pit bulls. And then it's me.

Now, of course, the perfect example of Peyton's empathetic nature was when she went up to Morgan, who was sitting on her own at the lunch table, and gave her some company. Yes, now I see it. Right? So we're coming full circle. We see the difference between the girls. Now they were best friends, but they were very different with respect to empathy. Maybe that girl was sitting alone by herself for a reason. Well, she did have imaginary friends, so maybe she was not alone. The fucking girl threw insects at me. I'm not sitting next to her. She barked at me. Good point. Okay.

So Morgan and Peyton had a really tight bond and a friendship filled with inside jokes, play dates, sleepovers, and nicknames. Morgan's nickname for Peyton was Bella. So if you ever hear interviews or watch the police footage or anything like that, you're going to hear her being referred to as Bella. That was her nickname. Anyway, all pretty typical kid stuff. But that all changed when they entered the sixth grade and Morgan met a new girl in town named Anissa Weyer.

Anissa was a new student at the girls' school who also happened to move into the same apartment complex as Morgan. So it was almost unavoidable for Morgan and Anissa to connect in some way at some point. But Anissa and Morgan didn't just sit together on the bus or wave to each other in the hallway. Anissa instantly and fully infiltrated Morgan and Peyton's friendship, and not in a the more the merrier type of way.

It immediately took on a Three's Company vibe, and the friendship now had a sort of imbalance to it. But that had less to do with the fact that there were now three girls instead of two, and more to do with the fact that Anissa was purposely driving a wedge between Morgan and Peyton in an effort to destroy their bond and to squeeze Peyton out. She very clearly wanted Morgan all to herself. All right, I'm not a fan of Anissa right off the bat. Your instincts are completely spot on.

One day while on the bus together, Anissa made the decision to create a special bond between just her and Morgan. A bond that would only be shared between the two of them and no one else, least of all Peyton. And that's when she introduced Morgan to an entire digital landscape full of dark corners, horrifying figures, and an ambiguous line existing between fantasy and reality. Creepypasta? Creepypasta. Oh, shit. What?

And they're 12? They're 12. I'm glad you actually just said that because when we go through this case, please never lose sight of the fact that these children are 12. Yeah. Naturally, Anissa also introduced Morgan to her favorite creepypasta character, Slenderman. Oh, gee. Morgan had never even heard of creepypasta, but once Anissa brought her into the whole online subculture, the girls' mutual admiration for Slenderman quickly developed into obsession.

Every picture they drew, every story they wrote, and every conversation they had centered around Slender Man. And of course, Anissa used Slender Man to further isolate Peyton from their little trio because Peyton wasn't into creepypasta. In fact, she was freaked out by all of it.

So Anissa would intentionally send Peyton scary messages telling her that Slenderman was going to get her just to fuck with her and to create like a bigger divide between her and Morgan. Sounds like me with my Jay-Z friends. Oh, go on. Well, there's people that I only talk to about Jay-Z. I just love them so much. I talk to me as friends. Oh, that's me. Yeah.

But here's an important note to keep in mind. Morgan, and possibly also Anissa, but definitely Morgan, truly believed that Slender Man actually existed. And this is a very important distinction to make. Yeah. Right? So think about what that means. She truly believed that this supernatural figure was out there preying upon children in order to lure them into the woods, convince them to kill other children, and

So that they could become part of his proxy. And his proxy refers to the group of people that serve him. So I don't know what happened with this case, but I'm kind of like already getting... You're piecing it. Yeah. And I don't like it. Understandably, Morgan started truly fearing Slenderman by this point. And you would, wouldn't you, if you truly believed him and like his nefarious intentions? Of course. As a grown-up, like I said, I won't even stand in front of a mirror at midnight and say Bloody Mary three times.

Like even as an adult, shit like this, I secretly somehow believe. I don't watch scary stuff usually. I just don't think it's interesting most of the time. But I watched The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. Yeah, you've talked about, no, you've talked about this before, how it's just next level scary. It changed my life. I was one person before The Haunting of Hill House and I was a different person after. That's how scary it was. How are you different? Less happy. I don't know. Holy shit.

Just more like, man, the person who wrote that and did it, the director, did such a good job of the psychological and the jump and the ominous and the design. I just feel like I did after I had my first and only bad mushroom trip. Like I saw different parts of my brain. You've taken mushrooms? Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that.

I'm sorry to hear that it was bad, but... It was terrible. I took acid at Thanksgiving when I was like 13. 13? Yeah. Who gave that to you? Hey, I wasn't stabbing kids in the woods. Well, listen, you... If the acid worked, I may have. It was fake, thank God. What? It wasn't real. Like, we took it and... Oh, so you didn't take acid? No, nothing happened. Oh, okay.

Morgan started actually seeing, really and truly seeing Slenderman all over the place in real life, whether in a reflection, standing amongst a crowd, or lurking in a dark shadow. And you might be wondering, what do I mean, right? Like, what do I mean that she's seeing him? In her mind...

she was truly seeing him. Yeah. She was having hallucinations that he was really there. And remember, part of the allure of these creepypastas is that they're portrayed as being real. If for no other reason, then no one can actually prove that they're not real. Like, can you prove that Bigfoot is not real as an example? No.

You can't do it, which is why so many people believe that he is real. By the way, for those of you who didn't hear me say anything, I just had a blank stare on my face and she took that as a no, which is what it was. For Bigfoot? You were like, can you prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist? I was like, uh. I saw him last weekend with a deer on my property. I threw an apple at him. Thinking about it.

Around Christmastime in 2013, Morgan approached Anissa and suggested that they show Slenderman their loyalty by joining his proxy so that he would spare them and their families. Oh my God. She had read on an online forum that the only way to truly show your loyalty and thereby save yourself from Slenderman was to kill someone you love. Cool. No extra points if you can guess who Anissa suggested they kill. Peyton. Peyton.

Suddenly, Morgan and Anissa had a plan. They would sacrifice Peyton to Slenderman on the night of Morgan's birthday sleepover, which was planned for May 30th, 2014.

Morgan and Anissa had begun actively plotting Peyton's murder and would speak in a secret language they developed to avoid getting overheard and caught. They even talked about their plot of killing Peyton in front of Peyton using this secret language, which is just extra fucked up. Yeah. They had code words and phrases to describe the graphic and brutal acts they intended to carry out in service to Slenderman. Pop quiz. Oh, God. What was their code word for knife?

A, kitten. B, kite. C, cracker. Kitten, cracker, kite. The code word for knife was kitten. No. Okay, hold on. Cracker. Yes. Okay, cracker. I don't, I mean, total shot in the dark, yes. Nailed it.

I thought kittens because she was into kittens. That's why I listed it as a possibility. You are out of your fucking mind. Over the course of the next five months, from December through May, I mean, that's some staying power. Yeah. For 12-year-olds. Correct. They meticulously planned the murder of unsuspecting, empathetic Peyton. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. So by the time May 30th arrived, they were ready.

The relationship that existed between Morgan and Anissa at this point is so symbiotic or parasitic really is probably the word, right? They fed off each other's weaknesses for their own self-serving purposes and

Anissa knew that Morgan was deeply afraid of Slenderman. And Morgan knew that Anissa hated Peyton. So they capitalized on each other's weaknesses and feelings for their own benefit. It's so fucked up and so calculated. And again, I remind everyone, they're 12. Well, girls do mature faster than boys, right? Okay. So let's put them at a 15-year-old maturity level. Diabolical.

And by the way, to your point, by all accounts, they were actually extremely immature 12-year-olds. I disagree, but that's okay. I don't know enough about it, and I'm not a professional, but I will say that this is also, first and foremost, a very, very unique relationship.

rare case where two little fucking psychopaths found each other at school and plotted to kill their classmates. So mature, immature, smart, diabolical, whatever. It's not like, oh, my daughter's turning 12. I better watch out. She's going to murder her friend. Like this is super rare. This is an outlier for sure. The date is now May 30th and Morgan's birthday party has begun. It starts out with the three girls meeting at a roller rink and it was going to end with all of them sleeping over Morgan's house.

The original murder plan was for Morgan to stab Peyton in her sleep at the slumber party. Jesus. Because remember, Slender Man's rule was that you had to kill someone you love. Didn't you have to do it in the woods or it didn't matter? To get into his proxy, you just had to kill someone you loved. I like how you're talking about him like he is real. Maybe he fucking is. Prove that he isn't. I dare you. That'll be next episode.

So the one to wield the knife and administer the fatal blow had to be Morgan, since Anissa hated Peyton. Yes. After they slaughtered their friend in her sleep, the plan was for Morgan and Anissa to flee the scene and head towards Slenderman's Mansion, located 300 miles away in Nicollet National Forest in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Morgan set an alarm on her iPad for 2 a.m. and popped in her headphones so that when it went off, it wouldn't wake up Peyton and spoil the plan. I mean, the level of premeditation is astounding. Yeah. If they put that energy into something, if they studied as much as they plan to kill their friend. Kids these days. Yeah.

But when the alarm sounded at 2 a.m., Morgan decided that she wasn't going to stab her best friend to death just yet, as she wanted to, quote, give her one last morning. The next morning, all three girls woke up from the slumber party, they ate donuts and strawberries for breakfast, and they played dress-up together. Anissa was looking at Morgan, she's like, what the fuck, dude? I thought you were going to kill her. What happened? What?

Looking at her over donuts like, you blew it. You were supposed to stab her, right? The two of them just instantly started to devise a new plan for killing Peyton. Pivot. Pivot. And this is suggested to Morgan in their secret language that they grab a cracker, head over to their neighborhood park, which was called David's Park, and kill Peyton in the public restroom so that her blood could go down the bathroom drain.

Into Slender Man's mansion? No. It didn't matter just so there wasn't a mess. Okay. Morgan felt that this was a satisfactory plan, so she grabbed a five-inch knife from her kitchen, stuffed it into her coat pocket, and made her way out of the house with her two friends.

While walking to the park, Morgan showed Anissa the knife handle concealed in her coat. And this is when, according to Anissa, she knew that the murder was really going to happen this time. Scary. It's chilling. Yeah. Selling a little or a lot.

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Then she proposed a challenge to Peyton, daring her to lie down and take a nap on the bathroom floor. Hey, Peyton, I bet you can't get stabbed to death on the bathroom floor. What the fuck? So pop quiz. Why did Anissa instruct Peyton to lie down on the bathroom floor?

A, was it because she read online that it's easier to kill someone who's asleep because they're not looking at you? B, she wanted to position Peyton over the bathroom drain. Or C, she wanted to hinder Peyton's ability to resist or fight back.

All three of these are terrible. Terrible. And I am gross that I came up with two of those. She wanted to be able to hinder Peyton's movement lying down? No. What is she, like a Gracie jiu-jitsu expert? That's like their whole thing. That's insane. Get them on their back? Get them off their feet, yeah. When you brand a cow, if you take it off its feet, it can't hurt you as much. That's like why they started jiu-jitsu. It's just not like a straight...

strong animal. Cow? They could have done better. Get run into by a cow. A silverback gorilla? I'm paying attention. Okay, let's talk about a T-Rex then. We're going to keep talking about bigger animals. A fucking cow is gigantic. A cow? Yes. Okay. I want to see you fight a cow next week. See how you do. And you can't take it down.

I would never harm an animal. She wanted to position her over the drain? No. Fuck. And this is the tank we know and love. Yeah, the one who sucks at PQs. She read online that it's easier to kill someone who's asleep because then they're not looking at you.

And why do you want someone not looking at you while you kill them, you ask? Not because you may feel guilt or remorse or hesitancy overtaking that person's life when they're looking you square in the face. No. It's because when you look into someone's eyes, you can see yourself and you don't want to kill yourself. Yeah, this chick is whacked.

She read that fun fact on the Creepypasta wiki page. Oh, she got it from the Creepypasta wiki page, so it must be true. Listen, anything you read on the internet is true. Yeah. Peyton refused to lie down on the filthy floor of the public restroom. Municipal bathroom? Surprise. Relatable. Anissa was pissed. So she proceeded to smash Peyton's head into the concrete wall.

At this point, Morgan handed Anissa the knife since she seemed to be taking matters into her own hands. But Anissa stepped back and she refused to take the cracker.

Morgan then said, quote, I thought we agreed that you'd be the one to do this. Morgan by this point goes into full panic mode and she starts repeatedly saying, I can't do this. You have to. She developed some empathy. I don't know if it's empathy or cold feet or what. Ability to feel something, which is nice. Yeah, fair. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's self-preservation. Maybe it is empathy. Yeah. Yeah.

Obviously, Peyton is now in tears. She's totally confused. She's in a daze from having her head just thrown into a wall. Sure. And she's seeing her friends holding a five-inch knife, panicking and arguing with each other. That was the cracker you were talking about? Oh, my God. It really is heartbreaking.

Still, Peyton did not quite grasp the severity of the situation, and after leaving the restroom while the other two girls continued to panic and argue, she decided to sit down on a park bench rather than fly the coop. Unbeknownst to her, she blew her one shot at escaping what happened next. When Anissa exited the bathroom, she approached Peyton on the bench and asked if she wanted to play a game of hide-and-seek in the nearby woods.

Peyton, so innocent, said yes. Anissa told Morgan that she would lead Peyton as far off as possible into the woods so that the two of them could then, quote, hunt her down like lionesses chasing a zebra.

Both Morgan and Anissa at this point are determined to see this plan through. So Anissa led Peyton by her arm into the wooded area. And once they got into an area that she considered to be remote enough, she instructed Peyton to lie down on the ground and to cover herself with leaves to hide better from Morgan in this supposed game of hide and seek. The hunt began.

Morgan started making her way through the woods, claiming to hear Slenderman encouraging her on every step of the way. When Morgan found Peyton, she handed Anissa the knife, once again saying that she couldn't do it and reminding Anissa that she, quote, knew where all the soft spots were. But Anissa handed the knife back to Morgan and said, you do it. Go ballistic. Go crazy.

I think for Anissa, a lot of this is about the power she has over Morgan and wanting to sort of like wield her authority over the situation and to ensure that it's Morgan who ends the life of this girl who dared to impede upon their friendship. Yeah. Morgan replied, I'm not doing it until you tell me to do it.

So Anissa turned around, took three steps back, and shouted, now. Well, did she triple dog dare her? She didn't have to. Morgan pounced on her prey, very much like a lioness tearing apart a zebra. She pinned Peyton's legs down, pulled Peyton's face towards her, and whispered, don't be afraid. I'm only a little kitty cat.

Ugh. Ugh.

Anissa then tried to drag a very wounded Peyton even further into the woods, instructing her to lay down and be quiet. Then Anissa told Peyton that she and Morgan would go to get help, which obviously is absurd on so many levels. Yeah. Right? Instead, of course, Anissa and Morgan ran out of the woods to flee the scene and to start their 300-mile journey towards Slender Man's mansion. Okay.

They were going to be very surprised when they got there. Well, they never got there. Spoiler alert. To find that he was not real. Right. Sweet Peyton was left to bleed out in the woods and die alone. She couldn't see. She was in a tremendous... Why couldn't she see? Blood? Blood and shock. She was in a tremendous amount of pain and she was terrified beyond belief. But she was not about to give up.

Operating purely on adrenaline at this point, Peyton managed to pull herself up and out of the woods, all the while saying to herself, I am not going to die, not today. And this brings us back to the top of the story when a cyclist named Greg Steinberg, who happened to divert from his typical route that day,

stumbled upon a grassy patch of land containing a 12-year-old girl profusely bleeding. As mentioned earlier, Greg called 911, stayed by Peyton's side, and comforted her until emergency services arrived.

Peyton, who had puncture wounds all over her body and had skin that was already starting to gray... Oh, my God. ...was rushed to the Waukesha Memorial Hospital and taken straight into surgery. The outcome was not expected to be favorable. Oh. Peyton suffered from soft tissue damage to her arms and legs with two wounds to her abdomen that hit major organs like her stomach and her liver...

but it had missed a major artery by the width of a human hair. Oh, my God. Thank you, God. This poor baby had to undergo significant surgery, but still managed to first communicate the names of her assailants before going into surgery. Good. And after six hours of surgery, amazingly, miraculously, Peyton survived. Wow. Wow.

Meanwhile, the police began their search for Morgan and Anissa. By that point, they'd walked north for about five hours before the police discovered them on the side of I-94 where they were sitting watching cars drive by. Having recently stopped at a Walmart,

covered in bloodstains to pick up some snacks for their journey to find Slenderman. Yeah, I can't imagine. First of all, Greg, who found the girl, must have just been beside himself. Absolutely. I can't even, that's like...

What a stud. Yeah. I love it. So you can hear the police call that he made. So obviously not only does he like immediately call for backup and literally that's the move that saved her life. Yeah. But to hear him comforting Peyton. Yeah. What a human. What a hero. What a hero. I'm not a hero, ma'am. He's a hero, ma'am. He is a hero.

According to police, both girls were chillingly composed and collected given what they had just done to their 12-year-old best friend. In fact, the first question that Anissa asked when she was brought in for interrogation at the Waukesha Police Department was, how far did I walk just now? That was her first question. It's so creepy. And again, you can see this footage from the interview where

Anissa is sitting down in the interrogation room. She looks up at Detective Michelle Tresoni and she says, can I ask you a question? And you think maybe she's going to ask, is Peyton okay? Am I in trouble? Can I talk to my parents? But instead she asks the detective how far she walked because she's not athletic and so she finds it impressive that she put in so many steps. She thought it was going to be like 297 miles and like they're so close. Right, right.

You walked a half a mile, you fucking idiot. Right. Covered in blood with your Walmart snacks, you piece of shit. Oh, fuck this. Sorry. I mean, they're kids, obviously. They're kids. Nah, fuck them. Fuck the kids. They're 12 years old. They stabbed their best friend, plotted it, almost backed out, kept doing it. Like, this is a problem. These kids need to go away. We have all the feels with this case. We really do because they clearly had mental health issues and we're going to go on to hear it. And so we're always empathetic going back to that.

to anyone who's struggling with mental health issues. But to your point, they premeditated this brutal, you know, wannabe murder and put this girl through hell. Yeah. When Morgan entered her interrogation room, she too had an interesting reaction. Pop quiz. Oh no. Did she A, fall asleep, B, become selectively mute, or C, dance? Fall asleep, become selectively mute, or dance? Yes.

Yes. That's what a psycho would do. Oh, my God. Yeah. Actually, a psycho or a guilty person would fall asleep. That's statistically what happens in an interrogation room. Yep. Somebody who's innocent, they are freaking out that they are in this interrogation room. They do not know how they got there. How are they going to get out of

How am I going to prove myself? Whatever. A guilty person, it's believed, sort of feels a sense of relief that it's come to an end, that they've been caught and they typically will fall asleep. I can finally rest. These shackles are amazing. So she's dancing in the interrogation room. It's a really haunting sight. Yeah.

And that whole dancing scene foreshadowed the rest of Morgan's behavior during her interview because she was eerie as fuck. She presented as restless and jittery, would frequently gaze out into the ether. And yet her affect, the delivery of her actual words was very matter of fact and unemotional.

In fact, when asked to describe the actual act of plunging a knife into her best friend 19 times, she said, quote, it didn't feel like anything. It was like air.

And then she proceeds to do a stabbing motion with her hand in the air. Wow. Why did they ask her what it felt like or to describe what it felt like? They didn't ask her to necessarily describe what it felt like. They said, tell us about when you stabbed her. Oh, okay. I thought they were asking that to maybe see if she described it weird. They would know that she didn't do it. Like when they asked Steve Carell what a boob feels like and he says, a bag of sand. Yeah.

Is this 40-year-old virgin? It felt like stabbing... Air. Clay. It felt like stabbing air. She didn't do it. She doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. No. But that would be an interesting tactic, and maybe you just could give them some ideas for interviewing. Yeah.

Morgan conveyed the notion that she committed the murder out of a genuine belief that she had to do it in order to save herself and her entire family from Slenderman. Yeah, it's a good motivation. She said, quote, I didn't want to do this. I was afraid what would happen if I didn't, end quote.

During Anissa's police interrogation, she also started out by saying basically that Slender Man made her do it and that she felt she had to prove herself worthy to him in order to be spared, yada yada. Did the cops know anything about Slender Man before this case? That they like heard of him? That's a good question. I can't answer that. I don't know. Yeah, that's interesting. If she like... I mean, Slender Man...

If you do research on Slenderman, as I have, it's often referred to as a meme and like one of the first ones to have gone viral. But back then it wasn't what it is now.

You know what I mean? Yeah. There's not Halloween costumes of it. It was still kind of like a probably in the know internet kind of thing. I didn't know about it, right? I was around during that time. I'm a creepy person. Yeah, you are. So, yeah. I feel like maybe the police didn't know until this case. Maybe you were not eating carbs at that time. Pasta. Shut up. Oh. Me. I'm the idiot. You could do better. Yeah, I could. Creepy keto chips. Yeah.

There it is. No, I don't know what creepypasta is. I don't eat carbs. Sorry.

So she begins, as I said, by pinning the whole thing on Slenderman, talking about Anissa now during her interrogation. But then she pivots and she just pins the whole thing on Morgan, which is total bullshit. Yeah. Eventually, it was determined by the end of the interviews with each of the girls that the idea to kill Peyton had come from Morgan out of a desire to please Slenderman.

Pop quiz. What did the police find in Morgan's bedroom during a search? A, a Slenderman doll and handwritten vows declaring Morgan's eternal devotion to him. B, a hit list of children's names from her class that she'd be willing to sacrifice to Slenderman. Fuck. C, drawings of Slenderman and mutilated dolls. Drawings of Slenderman.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, I'm so mad, man. You're getting all of these right. I know. Slenderman. Oh.

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The police also found internet searches on Morgan's computer, like how to get away with murder and what kind of insane am I? Oh man, that's sad. Yeah. I mean, listen, this case is heartbreaking and tragic on so many levels. First and foremost, the premeditated brutality and severe physical injuries sustained by an innocent 12 year old girl is incomprehensible. That takes the cake.

But what's also heartbreaking is the extent of mental health struggles that both Anissa and Morgan faced during this time. That was found on Morgan's computer? Yes. Yeah, like if you checked my browser history in 2017 and saw, has anyone with intrusive thoughts ever actually killed somebody? You'd be like, oh, this poor guy's crazy. I think I'm leaving again. Yeah.

This guy's nuts. But no, the answer was no. I almost didn't press enter on the search because I was like, I don't even want to know. And then I pressed it and it was like, no, nobody with fucking intrusive thoughts has ever killed somebody. What were your intrusive thoughts back then? Killing people. For real? I think I had a bit of like postpartum depression because I thought...

I guess my kids can't listen to this now. I was going to let them listen to it, even though it's a terrible idea. I thought two weeks after my first son was born that I was going to kill him and I wasn't going to be able to stop myself. Oh, that actually... I mean, that's obviously... Super common. Super common for the... I've actually, to be honest, I've never heard of it like with respect to the father. Yeah. But I've absolutely heard of those intrusive thoughts when it comes to new moms. Well, it's like the worst thing your brain could possibly think of. That's why it's not...

So I did this. I listened to this course and the woman was like, everything you need to know about yourself, you get told by your reaction to the thought. So if you recoil from the thought and it makes you feel horrible and scared, that means you're not going to do it. Interesting. Oh yeah. I watched the whole thing. My intrusive thoughts started. They go...

Real quick, I thought I was gay when I was like 18. I just became convinced I was going to have to take, you know, dicks in my mouth and I just couldn't do anything about it. I was like, but I don't want to suck a dick. Well, you probably don't have to. You know what I mean? Did not even occur to me that I wasn't attracted to men, which is like a huge part of being gay. Probably the whole thing.

I just thought I was going to have to have sex with men. Why? Intrusive thoughts. I don't know. There's no actual like logical reason behind it. It's just popping into your brain. Pops into your brain and you take this passing thought seriously. So that's actually when I watched the course, the woman said like, that's,

the most common among young men. Oh, is that right? I also thought, this is less common, I also thought maybe I had Down syndrome and I couldn't know it and nobody would tell me because they loved me and I wouldn't... I think there is so much to unpack here. Why? What gave you that intrusive thought? Worth of work. No, but I mean, did somebody say something to you? No, no. Were you struggling in some aspect of your life? Like...

you know, I don't know. Listen, I have intrusive thoughts, but I can usually understand sort of where they come from. No, no. These real intrusive, like pure OCD, which is what it's called, thoughts come from the darkest places of your brain. Like what would happen if...

So-and-so happened. And then because you have, not you, but me, you have a weird thing in your brain, you take the thought seriously. Just to close the loop, the thoughts about your children. Yeah. What happened there? Nothing. That was the one that I Googled the course. What do you do? How do you treat this? Because that was like enough already. Listen, I'm not a psychologist, but I would imagine that intrusive thoughts obviously also emerge when you are...

probably overwhelmed with emotions to the contrary. So in other words, you just became a father. Yeah. Your feelings were to protect and preserve this new child. I was feeding him for the first time. So your intrusive thought was the opposite. Here's the opposite. Right. Yeah. Oh my God. Psychology. Yeah. It's strange. Very strange. And that was like the beginning of the end. And then somebody, I had done enough work at this point on myself, spiritually, emotionally, you know, whatever. Um,

to have a good foundation for healing from this. But somebody, there's a book called The Power of Now where Eckhart Tolle talks about your thoughts and whatever. And there's this thesis that like your thoughts, most of them, 99% of them are automatic and are based in nothing that's happening right now. So anyway, I said to this guy, Mike, who had also read the book, he goes, I,

Yeah, but you know what? That's just a thought. You don't need to take it seriously. And then I said to him, yeah, but what if it's not just a thought? He goes, that's just another thought. And that was it. Wow. Yeah.

But this girl Morgan, I mean, she nurtured the thought. She's also 12. Yeah. She didn't have the mental capacity. Well, she absolutely did not have the mental capacity and that's sort of scientifically proven. Yeah. Her brain is not developed obviously enough to be able to make that decision to disregard the intrusive thought or to... I was already sober for like 15 years when I finally was like enough. Right. I was 37 years old.

And I was like, I got to, cause they didn't, they don't come that often. They come like, I don't know, once every six months or once every year or two years. But like, that was enough. I was like, no, this is not normal.

During her pre-trial incarceration, Morgan was diagnosed with childhood onset schizophrenia and displayed a number of psychotic behaviors in response to vivid auditory and visual hallucinations. Oh, so she maybe was seeing Slender Man. She was seeing him. Look, logically, was she? No, right? He wasn't there. Was she, in her mind's eye, seeing him? Yes. Yes, she was. Wow.

Wow. Okay. My son has been sleeping in my bed for like two weeks because he is convinced that he heard voices outside his window telling him he was going to die. I'm telling him 15 times a day in as many ways as I can say it. There was nobody outside your window telling you you were going to die.

He heard it. Yeah. Like there is just no convincing him otherwise. So he's with mama and I'm loving him and I'm taking care of him. So don't worry about him. Yeah. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that can, and in this case did result in bizarre thinking perceptions like that, which she experienced during her hallucinations when she was seeing Slenderman behaviors and emotions. Psychosis is a brain based condition that is made better or worse by environmental factors like stress,

Slender Man created an enormous amount of stress on Morgan and truly had her believing that her life was in danger. Like most children who experience psychosis, she likely lived with the sense of, you know, something's not right and struggled to know what was real and what wasn't.

So just real quick on the environmental thing, my therapist told me after I stopped drinking so much caffeine because that was probably part of it, that there is such a thing called caffeine-induced psychosis and caffeine-induced schizophrenia. Really? Yes. Well, Dave had struggled with sleep for a while. Yeah. And he had like...

insomnia induced psychosis or he was very close to it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the brain is... So that's good. It's interesting to hear that psychosis isn't affected by environmental factors. I didn't know. I mean, I did, I guess, because of the caffeine thing, but I didn't know generally. Right. Schizophrenia just does whatever it wants all the time. Has a life of its own, has many lives of its own. Yeah. It's...

an uncommon psychiatric illness in young children and it's hard to recognize when it's in its early phases. But Morgan's father, Matt, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Really? And he was allegedly hospitalized four times by the time he was 14. Oh my God. So it's tough to imagine that her parents didn't recognize the signs. And I'm not trying to

throw shade on them. I've seen many interviews. They truly like seems like they were attentive, doting, loving, you know, aware parents, but it does have me raising an eyebrow. Well, to do that, to hospitalize her, they would have to admit that it's real and that's very difficult to do. Right. But in an interview, Angie, her mother says, my husband, Matt has schizophrenia and I was waiting to see if one of my children would have it because I figured it was likely.

How long were you going to wait, ma'am? Yeah, well, she waited too long, unfortunately. Sad, sad though, really. Schizophrenia is one of those things that like, it's a, I mean, devastating mental illness, obviously. This is the thing about this case. Yeah. It is heartbreaking and tragic and we're all throwing shade on Morgan and Anissa. 100% reasonable. I get it.

But we do have to remember that the assailants were two 12-year-old girls with mental health issues. One of them had schizophrenia. Right. For Anissa, it was determined that her impressionability, coupled with Morgan's influence, led to a momentary state of insanity during which she could not distinguish reality from fantasy. Wait, wasn't Anissa the one who was forcing things?

It was Morrigan's idea. Oh. And it was Anissa who was sort of carrying it out and pushing it forward. But Anissa initially tried to drive the wedge between the two girls. Yes, she did. But that's very different from murder.

Not in my book. She just didn't appreciate the wrongness of her actions. That was part of her sort of evaluation. Yeah. The girls were tried in adult court in 2017 and charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. Anissa later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

She was sentenced to 25 years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, but she was released in 2021. Oh my God. In a conditional release, Anissa is required to live with her father, receive psychiatric treatment, and agree to GPS monitoring while also having limited internet access. Morgan also pleaded guilty and was also found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

But Morgan was handed a sentence of 40 years in Winnebago Mental Health Institute and

She remains there to this day and is expected to stay there for the foreseeable future. Wait, Anissa got out in 2021? And Morgan had a 40-year sentence. Morgan's the one with schizophrenia. Right. Yeah, I mean... And the whole premeditated murder, the whole idea behind taking out Peyton or taking out any human being, it was Anissa who pinpointed Peyton, but it was Morgan's idea to kill. Yeah. That was all considered in her sentence. Listen...

jails, institutions, whatever, it is very sad that some people wind up in them. However, I've always thought of jails as places for people who are too mentally ill to be in society because they're going to hurt somebody, whether they're stealing from them, killing them, raping, abusing, whatever. Yes, you're a human being. Yes, you deserve a fair shot at life, but

if something inside of you is making you act in a way that's harmful to others, you have to be essentially like quarantined. Like you're mentally sick. You have to be quarantined away from people who are not because then you're going to make them sick when you kill their mother and now they're all fucked up because their mom got murdered. Like you can't be in society. It just is what it is. Listen, blue sky scenario for prisons. It's a rehabilitation center. Oh yeah, for sure.

Some people are rehabilitated, by the way. Some people are. Yes. Some people have like terminal mental illness. Yes. Meaning they'll never get better. Peyton left the hospital seven days after the attack and returned to school that September. What?

Boss woman. Holy shit. She must have been the coolest fucking kid in school. So apparently, it's funny you say that. So I read that, you know, she loved cats. She volunteered at a cat sanctuary. When she returned to school, all of the kids drew whiskers on their face. Oh my God. How did I not post that on Tanks Get News? Well, maybe you will after release of this episode. Oh my God.

Holy shit. She went back to school? I mean, I get emotional thinking about Peyton. I really, really do. In 2019, she was in an ABC interview and she actually expressed gratitude for her traumatic experience saying that it inspired her to pursue a career in medicine. And as she put it,

Without the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am. Yeah. It's a great attitude. Absolutely. And the only one to have. I mean, and that's the one we're going to leave off on with this case. Oh my God. What a terrible case. But yeah, thanks for listening. I hope this story didn't disturb you too much. Now you know the truth about Slender Man. I'm sure you've heard of him before. And now you know the deal. Now you know what happened. So thank you, Investigator Slater, for doing all of that intense research.

Thank you to our listeners for listening and being a part of it with me. I love doing it. Share this episode. Have your kids listen to it so they're not scared of Slender Man because they know that. Or if your kids do start talking about seeing Slender Man, they probably have schizophrenia. So take them to the doctor. I hope not. Rate, review, subscribe, share it. We'll see you next week. Bye.