Of this story for so long including us and this is the first time that pton Lightner is talking do you remember leaving the park to go to the woods this is the most unbelievable story I’ve ever heard who the heck is Slender Man three 12-year-old girls had a sleepover the suspects lowered the
Victim into the woods and all three of the girls are 12 years old we have no idea that she believed Slender Man was real what did you do next was there any part of it where you thought I might not survive this what were you trying to do with there when you SED
Her I might as well just say if we were trying to kill her if she saw this interview what would you want to say to her tonight the David new exclusive the 2hour 2020 event begins now the whole time and P was screaming are you going to put me in
Prison that I’m going to rot and die this is one of those stories that strikes at the heart of every parent especially the parents who take that extra effort to be aware of what their kids are doing when they go to their friends homes did you feel bad
They just St one your best friends I thought about it but then I decided that remorse will get me nowhere it’s easier to Live Without Regrets now for that shocking story out of Wisconsin the brutal stabbing of a 12-year-old girl the girl told police she was with two other girls she knew
The victim’s friends left her to die prosecutors asked for a million dollars cash bail for two middle schoolers they say plotted for months before they attacked their best friend right from the beginning the mediate coverage was overwhelming the suspect lured the victim into the woods all three of the
Girls are 12 years old and as full details of this case start to circulate people that I talk to literally have no words it was just sort of a hard story for everyone to get their head around three 12-year-old girls had a sleepover happens all over the country
All the time but this one ended a little different here you have this typical 12-year-old girl uh Payton Lightner she’s from wakaa Wisconsin uh she likes what so many young girls like and had she gone on sleepovers before Oh yeah and this was just you know her best friend’s birthday party another Friday
Night and but this was you know a party that was going to celebrate you know her best friend and they were talking about it for weeks Payton was so so excited go back 5 years ago to 12-year-old pton how would you describe her hopeful positive um an animal lover
I saw the good in people pton has a best friend her name is Morgan and one of the extraordinary things about Payton is that she was drawn to Morgan because Morgan was a bit of a loner I made friends with her when I saw that she
Didn’t have any friends at all because I yeah I didn’t want her to be alone she was my only friend for a long time because you your only friend it was necessary there was a third girl Ana what was your name Ana W she was new to the school that year uh
She became friends mostly with Morgan so the three of them uh had begun to spend time together it was a Friday night yeah we went to skat land I’ve always been pretty good at roller skating so I was going around doing my own thing we were at having a
Good time did you guys talk about the plan all pton had no idea that the other two girls uh had been planning had been plotting uh and what was supposed to be sort of a typical joyful slumber party was instead uh really a dark plan to try to lure pton in
What were you expecting these young girls to be doing well pton brought her American Girl doll I think back when I was 12 I played Barbies at sleepovers so that’s what I expected to be happening playing with NS and spending some time on the internet they played up in Morgan’s
Bedroom ran up and down the stairs giggling and laughing and I mean it was just a normal night I wondered you get your relas with one Morning the next morning then they wake up they have breakfast they play games to then go to the park we’re going to do it today at the park that’s what Moran said whose idea was it to go to the park do you remember it was Morgan’s idea she
Normally was not allowed to go by herself normally there had to be an adult but since it was her birthday her mom let her go with just a three of us and then we said that we were going to play hide and peek it happened really
Fast god this happening how in the heck can these two innocent looking 12-year-old girls commit such a heinous act what caused all this I didn’t even want to do this why did you do it then was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t and you never had any idea that
There was any sort of mm- No my name is Dan Klein I’m a police officer for the Sid wsha Police Department the wsha is a suburb of Milwaukee um it’s the biggest suburb around there’s about 70,000 residents a lot of families we have a lot of parks out there good Schools Saturday May 31st 2014 it was one of our first nice weather days that we’ve had on a Saturday sunny 72° gorgeous day out I thought well the earlier I get in the earlier I get out and put in my eight my first call the day uh was a pretty easy
Call the Family Video Store is one of our local M Anda shops they they rent videos one of the only ones left in the area that I’m aware of and on their Marquee they had a phrase that was supposed to say hot hit sale and someone had rearranged the letters overnight to
A very inappropriate message I was kind of ch about it it’s just about to take a photo to send to my wife so she could get a little chuckle out of it just as I was trying to take my phone out over my radio I heard that a
12-year-old girl had been stabbed about a mile and a half away from this location trans over a caller on Big B Came Upon a 12-year-old female she appears to be the St she appears to be what St initially my thoughts were this isn’t really what this is I’m thinking this
Girl probably scratched herself she fell down off her bike this this girl did not get stabbed Greg Steinberg was on his bicycle only on this Saturday he chose to take a different route and that’s what he found pton I quick got out my cell phone I was shaking and dialed 911
And I just stayed with the 911 she was right here in the grass exactly but you had no idea how many times she’d actually met okay sir are you with her right now yes is she awake she’s awake is there any bleeding going on her clothing has got
Blood on it I offered her water cuz I had a water bottle on my bike the other thing she said was she’s having trouble breathing he knew this was a little girl in trouble and when she began to tell him what had happened to her he was in
Disbelief the road uh that she was located on was Big Ben Road at the dead end of that Payton wasn’t moving a whole lot but as I approached her I said hi I’m officer Dan are you okay and she said no And I said Okay help is on the way
Just stay right where you are and as I got closer I started to see a little bit more blood um and the closer I got the more blood I saw it somehow she’d been able to pull herself out of those woods and in another moment of strength she
Was able to communicate with him I asked her who did this and she told me her friend Morgan I then asked her where did this happen and she told me that it happened in the woods she was the first one to reveal that it was Morgan her best friend who was behind
This Morgan is 12 Morgan didn’t do this is what’s going through my head there’s no way now police decide they’ve got to go to Morgan geyser’s house to figure out how this happened not only were there police in my living room but they were wearing riot
Gear I thought what in the heck would make somebody do this was it hard for you to wrap your head around what had been done to You do you feel like you’re a Survivor yeah I shouldn’t be alive I really shouldn’t after what Happened paramedics get to the scene and even they are stunned at what they’re seeing a 12-year-old girl she’d been stabbed multiple times they removed her clothing by cutting it off and got her on the gurnie and into the ambulance I could see multiple wounds on her she was
Able to somehow communicate with them in that moment that that this was a knife that had been used they asked how long was the knife and she said that the the knife was about like this and she was talking about the blade not the handle I was waiting in the ER and pton
Was brought in by stretcher the look on her face is something that I will never forget uh she she looked like she was in an extreme amount of pain so you bring her in here one of the first people to see her is the ER doctor
And he told me that her blood pressure was dangerously low her heart was working in overdrive I mean this is a 12-year-old girl really struggling to survive and when you looked at her it was immediately apparent she had been stabbed multiple times yeah to her chest
And abdomen and arm and leg my first thought is I need to get some sort of information from her in case that she does she does die I confirmed with her that Morgan did the stabbing I confirmed that uh she was in the woods at the time and that there was another girl
There at the time when this happened when detective ton hears this that she’s been stabbed uh by her friends she knows she has got to get to Payton’s mom Stacy uh and and right away it’s never fun making a notification to anybody because when they see us they know it’s not good the
First thing that goes through my mind is something has happened to somebody that I love because that’s the only reason a uniformed officer and a detective comes to your house on a Saturday morning she was very calm uh very collected she knew that something was going on I don’t
Think she knew exactly to what extent it was they said is pton home and I said no and they said was she had a sleepover last night and I said yeah she was I explained to her that she is alive but she’s been stabbed I said well are is it
Or the wound superficial and they said well we really don’t know but call your husband find somebody to take care of your son she just went right up there and she made it in time before Payton went into surgery I walked into the traa room that she was in and she was pale as a ghost she was terrified she was crying she couldn’t breathe and all I hear is there’s five on her arm there’s seven on her leg and I’m thinking seven what and one of the
Nurses says all right I count 19 and then the second nurse said I count 19 as well 19 what this there’s no way there were so many of them that they were carefully going over Payton’s body to make sure they hadn’t missed one uh stacy says she will never forget I said
You’re going to be okay it’s going to be fine but I could see that she was covered her arms and her legs and her abdomen they were covered in stab wounds does it seem surreal even to this day yeah it does there I mean there are definitely like moments from that day
They’re just they’re burned into my mind I’ll never for for get him describe the moment you first see her the surgeon who was there that day when he was looking at the wounds and in particular the stab wound to the chest he told me that it had it been the
Width of a human hair deeper that stab wound that she wouldn’t be here today the knife stopped at the wall of the artery had it not had it not she would have had a major heart attack from the amount of bleeding and probably died within a minute her
To and now police decide they’ve got to go to Morgan geyser’s house to figure out how this happened what was behind us they asked me where’s Morgan I said she’s at the park with her friends Angie geyser told us that there was three girls a third girl named Ana and the
Three girls left earlier in the morning for the park and they hadn’t heard from them since they searched the house and I just kept asking you know what happened what’s going on and they they wouldn’t tell me other than to say there had been an incident at the park and one of the
Girls was hurt the thing that really struck me is the way that she portrayed her daughter to be that she was totally normal she was a good kid and she thought that this was totally out of character for Morgan to be involved in anything like this after we had found out that there
Was this third girl Ana that was there we were able to get in contact with Ana’s dad bill my ex-husband called me and told me to get to the condo as soon as possible the police are there looking for an Esa we search the house we didn’t find either of the girls
There where are these other two girls they know those two girls were in the woods but they cannot be found where’s my daughter that’s the only thought I had in my head I looked at her cell phone checked all of her text messages trying to figure out the people that she called
And contacted last asked Christy wire and said that she had found an’s cell phone and found a particularly disturbing message that was on there I found basically her goodbye notes I thought that they were in grave danger that we may find these girls dead what
Was the meaning of this we need to find these two girls so what’s going on with you why you think you’re here today it is a scene you rarely see two 12-year-old girls in separate interrogation rooms and when she began explaining I just remember going this is the most unbelievable story I’ve ever Heard breaking news a 12-year-old girl is stabbed leading to a big police search in waa shop there is a very active scene where Payton was found police are still investigating they still have this neighborhood shut down we’ve realized now that we have two missing girls are these girls injured
Where are these girls what was the meaning of this we had just an overwhelming police presence throughout the community squad car zooming everywhere a major search by ground and a at one point I heard a helicopter over had you never hear a helicopter we called in additional resources we had
Kine officers that were up we also started to put some stuff out into the media so here’s what we know at this hour a 12-year-old Wonka sha girl is stabbed 19 times these are the woods where the stabbing actually happened a massive search for two girls who were
With the victim before she got hurt we have absolutely no no idea what’s happened to my younger sister my daughter was supposed to be at a slumber party and now she’s missing it was one of those kinds of stories where newsrooms go crazy and everybody starts trying to find an angle
You just wonder what puts a 12-year-old girl in this state of mind [ __ ] was a very happy child she was intensely creative she was always making up songs and Stories Vana did enjoy choir she did enjoying backing back oh bring back Ana was very imaginative she would always imagine a bigger and better life for her Barbie dolls looking back Ana was never really invited to a lot of birthday parties or anything I don’t think she really made friends that easy
Morgan did endure a lot of bullying especially in the sixth grade by the other students in the last year she started to become moodier and a little bit more reclusive she never talked about any of the sadness or any of the bad things they knew what each other had gone
Through and they were going to be there for each other initially when we’re at first on scene Christy wi Ana’s mom had called me and said that she had found an’s cell phone I looked at her cell phone checked all of her text messages and I found basically her goodbye notes the message
Said this is my final wish to those who care do not grieve my absence but remember me for who I was I love and cherish you and wouldn’t do you harm it then changed my thoughts from abduction to running away it was about 2:53 in the afternoon
I had gotten uh a message that the sheriff’s department had located the girls on the site of I94 they have found those two girls I’m told around 12 years old they were sitting on the side of the freeway by the time we found them they
Had walked about 5 hours and made it to the north end of our city and they were transported back to our Police Department the detective told us that they were taking them to the police station to ask them some questions I remember talking on the way
Um how we how we were going to punish Morgan for this I mean we just had no idea how how serious it was when they brought the girls back pay was actually still in surgery and we we did not know if she was going to make it at this
Point so we didn’t know if this was going to be a homicide investigation or what this was going to turn out to be they were kind of dirty covered in some stains their demeanor was very calm they seemed um kind of Meek it is a scene you rarely see in fact I don’t
Know the last time I have seen two 12-year-old girls in separate interrogation rooms about to describe an excruciating detail what it is that played out in the woods I could tell that they were they were somewhat scared at least Thea was showing me that emotion um your parents know that you’re
Here talking to me okay and um I’m glad they’re so glad that your she I did notice she had a blood stain on the front of her shirt and she was wearing two shirts and I asked her you know are you okay stand up and of
Sure need it too okay what is your Name Morgan seemed like she was very Calm very relaxed I mean she’s at a police department and she’s covered in blood and this is like a normal day for her help us over take some photographs with you right now you You to Bella Morgan called pton by the name of Bella she said there was a nickname because there was another girl named pton is she dead I don’t know um she wants to take to the hospital what I was just wondering she was very nonch it didn’t seem like it really
Concerned her too much if she was dead or alive first thing I needed to do in order to talk to uh Ana and find out what happened I needed to read to her her Miranda writes you have the right to remain silent if you decide to give up
That right anything you say may be your sketch to in court apart from the law it is jarring to see 12year olds being interrogating without their parents presentence if you can have a for an attorney one will be provided to you by the court understand he right sit down
And talk to me today here in the state of Wisconsin a child can be interrogated without the presence of their parent or Guardian being in the room at that time I did not know that we find that people are more truthful when they don’t have their parents present you initial right
There and sign right there I thought that she really did understand what her rights were and made a knowledgeable decision to wave those rights I’ve never gone into an interview so blind as I have in this one I thought that maybe this was all about a boy this is a fight
About a boy I still don’t know what happened and I don’t know who did what and I and I need to know that today okay we didn’t know what these girls were going to tell us what were you trying to do with her when you sted her killed her
I might as well today it we were trying to kill her so why did you pick P I didn’t pick her who picked her whoever Ana was talking about she made it seem necessary my thought was why would she do this there website like hor of called slend who the heck is
Slender we had to prove ourselves worthy you think that two 12-year-olds would come up with something like this and plan it out for 6 months as soon as I heard I knew that this was going to be a big Deal so now you have Morgan geyser and Denisa wire in separate rooms interrogated for hours and to this day what you see on those inter interrogation tapes is simply chilling a little more comfortable here that I have a daughter that’s almost the same age as her like she could be my
Daughter but then she started saying things that were really very eerie hearing him coming out of a 12-year-old’s mouth way to get me arrested isn’t it can I Qui she didn’t realize the enormity of this yes I just wanted to know how far I walked because I’m usually not very
Athetic and just no in that moment I thought all right I I I am talking to a 12-year-old so did you guys talk about before him I needa told me we had to why because she said that he’d kill our families who here um I’m
Man I I didn’t know him but I need to knew him she began explaining right away about something from the internet um there’s this website called the Cy it’s full of like horror stories that to purposely scare you and there’s one of them called we all remember growing up there
There was always the folklore the spooky stories that would be shared among kids of a certain age and in this case this is the story of Slender Man it all started online with two paragraphs and two photographs one of them showed a bunch of smiling kids and
Is sort of Happily playing on a playground with a Slender Man in the background and the other one was sort of a more pensive picture the story that went with it sort of explained that these were photos that were taken right before a bunch of children had gone
Missing and that was it who’s stronger man he’s um he’s a this t with man on children he can be anywhere from 6t to 14 ft tall he’s a tall guy who constantly wear a suit um he doesn’t have a Fai he for his wife Anda actually
Was the first one who had found Slender Man in the creepy pasta wik uh the stories that were out there about Slender Man at his own will he can um like explain these tendrils from his back and like strangles his up creepy he said he targets children you he’s
Everywhere you I’ve read so many things about him it’s sort of going down the rabbit hole of the internet the idea became very crowdsourced and everybody loved it and they all started jumping in so this is a little concept art I drew of Slender people were making new images
New photos the first slender video game came out he’s never played it before so he’s going to play for the first time people would write different kinds of stories the stories looked real articles that looked like real news articles today we’re going to be looking for slend every little thing looks like him
And I’m starting every I’m dreaming about wait wait wait wait no no no I’m actually so scared right now it brings it to life in a way that is almost hard to contain especially for children who are of an age where they might struggle between what is fantasy and what is
Reality at this stage of Life they’re really searching a lot of this stuff that may scare them or that may draw them in there is no discussion around there’s no critical thinking around and so they can get carried away do you think looking back that they couldn’t differentiate between what was fictional
And what was real yeah I think that all of those fake pictures that were going around I think very strongly that they believed all of it was real I actually thought that he was real just I him we were uh like talking on the bus I look out the window and I see
This was a thing like this with tendil looks exactly like a tree um they dra like that the facelessness of the character makes him infinitely interpretable the were a lot of different variations out there and the girls found a version that complemented the things that they wanted
To believe Ana explained to me that to prove yourself worthy to slender you would have to kill somebody said we have to heal Ella then they were going to walk to the nickolay forest to try to find Slender Man found out that has this big Manion in the middle of the National Park
What needed to make this happen that for them to live in this Mansion was to kill somebody and that idea came from Morgan and my thought was is she doing this for Morgan what was Morgan like when you met her she seemed a little lonely controlling sometimes but I just went
With it at the time did you consider her your best friend yeah he was my only friend for a long time why you got your only friend it was necessary it wasn’t until 6th grade that Ana came into the picture Ana was moving to a new school so she didn’t
Know anybody their interests were similar with regards to what they like to read they were into horror stories Supernatural we’re supposed my sisters they were lonely girls they didn’t have a lot of friends came across I think to other students the best word I can think
Of is weird were you ever really friends with Ana no not really she was always cruel to me I feel like she was jealous that Morgan was friends with me and her as Morgan learned more about slender it came to dominate her thoughts and she got closer to Ana and a little more
Distant from Payton I didn’t really understand what we were doing but I really didn’t want to make any good it’s um hard enough to make friends I don’t want to lose room over losing with this do you understand what it means I mean I’ve seen stories on the
News but I never ful understood me to kill somebody as she’s explaining it to me I’m digesting it and I’m thinking where is this going to lead and then I started to again I said now crazy that’s a stone p What did you think was going to happen after you stabs I don’t really know I figured that I’d get in trouble eventually because Mommy always says that whatever you do catches up to you eventually and it did So about halfway during the interview with Morgan I got up and I took a little break I went and met with Detective tone and we sort of compared notes I just remember looking at him going this is the most unbelievable story I’ve ever heard who’s ever heard of two
12-year-old girls planning for 6 months to kill one of their best friends we have no idea how difficult it was not to tell anyone we would all be together it was a flous plan Actually I think they wanted to kill Payton because they felt Payton was accessible on that way you know they didn’t have a lot of friends she was somebody that they would be able to get to be alone with did you ever talk about killing Bella in the bus at the birthday
Party we did sometimes but we made sure we whisper gred the bus is really loud but C are East droppers we used cobs like for knife we metant we used cracker and for the killing we would use like it there are actually three plans that were devised to kill
Payton it said that um at her birthday party while Bella was sleeping we were going to um like Duck haer Mell shut da her in the neck and then leave Morgan was going to put on a set of headphones connected to her iPad and set
An alarm to wake her up in the middle of the night like 2 in the morning she would wake up Ana but we didn’t s her then we were too sleepy tired heavy rest Skate Land that was the original plan yeah until it Changed so 5:30 in the morning comes and they wake up they get up start playing with silly putty and uh playing with their iPad and playing dress up and while pton is putting on a pink princess dress the two start talking and they start devising plan number two when I
Said hey we could go to the park and kill her the bathroom show was that around at that time yeah we were playing dress up was putting on a costume in the bathroom it’s mind waggling how do you 1 minute want to play like a normal 12-year-old
And then switch back to Oh wait we’re going to kill her we asked could go down to the park CU we were going to do it down in the bathroom sh and like sit around the toilet there was a Dre for BL to go down
And when did she take the knif uh she took it before we left where did she get it from her kitchen so who left the house with her I think Ana did it was in the bag to me she was trying to deflect a blame from herself back onto Ana how
Did you know that she grabbed one cuz she showed it to me as we were walking to park Morgan lifts up her jacket and shows Ana that she’s got this knife in her waistband what were you thinking I was thinking your God happen she told us we had to kill her
Who did Ana there was a lot of deception in Morgan’s interview it seems like Ana is saying this is what happened but when you listen to Morgan she always says well I think that Ana did it I think this happened um I think Ana told me to
Ana might is up it’s s of foggy cuz I’ve been trying to block it out they then walk to the park they go into the bathroom at the park they’re in the bathroom stall and they’re kind of passing the knife back and forth from I read the it’s easier to
Kill people when they’re either asleep orous and it’s also easier if you do not look them in the eyes Ana tells me that she actually tries to knock Payton out I kind of went like that to her forehead bang her head up against me and you were doing this to Dr you guys
Killing in there yeah they lose their nerve they don’t kill her at that point and then go outside they leave the bathroom and they start to walk through the park and that’s when Plan Three is devised I say hey guys why don’t we go take a walk around the block that’s when
I pointed out tooran the trees and bushes and all that and say we could take her in there the G we let her there and tricked her how did you trick her to get Builders we said that we were going to go bird watching people who trust you
Become very vable and it was short was dead and once they got closer to the woods they had suggested that they play a game of hide and Seek they walked deeper and deeper into the woods and then Morgan said that she she would go off and count and that pton and Ana should go hide she was going to hide one I going to hide another Likeing Ana passes the knife back to Morgan and Morgan’s like all right I’ll do it only if you tell me when to do it so I started walking away and then like when I was 5 away I said now I’m like I’m go ballistic go crazy make sure
She’s down I couldn’t believe these words were coming out of a 12-year-old’s mouth it’s awful what did you do next I already told you what was that stab stab stab stab Stab in all my years of law enforcement I’ve never heard anything like this it’s almost as if they are are writing their own story they’re living their own Creepy Pasta story you look at that video and say see she’s bloodless she’s just coldhearted she was going to kill and other people
Said oh she’s so clearly Disturbed do you remember leaving the park to go to the woods they just wanted to go on a walk who could ever see something like this coming like nobody and you were 12 years old exactly oblivious they made the wrong turn at
Each point to the point where it just was out of control you just have to think about this locomotive that is just going down the tracks and there’s no breaks on it is it possible that we have that extremely rare thing going on here which is we just have an evil
12-year-old so many people have followed this story for so long including us and this is the first time that pton Lightner is talking I were like Chas was there anything that night that made you think something’s up here no they kept it a secret mommy always says
That whatever you do catches up to you eventually and it did tonight the David mure exclusive the 2hour 2020 event continues right now it wasn’t until we sat down and we started talking with the girls that we really knew what was going on that it was two 12-year-old girls had had plane
For 6 months to kill their friends you don’t often see this with adults and to have this happen between 12-year-olds is absolutely horrifying can I ask a question yes where is Body now back okay um I said it was still up there the crib tree did you think that she died
Yes she is alive okay have you ever watched any of those interrogations I watched a little bit what was your reaction it was a little shocking to me to see that they had this big huge plan that they had been working on for months less than a week after the attack
I was has to go to the hospital to interview pton she was very very quiet we had to turn up the sound on the recording equipment really high just to get her Voice do you remember leaving the park to go to the woods they just wanted to go on a walk and I didn’t think much of it it’s just a walk it’s in wakaa like what bad stuff happens in wakaa Wisconsin after we go into the woods we
Say we’re going to put your hide and cheeka told me to lie on the ground and like cover myself in like sticks and leaves and stuff but it was really just a trick it took a long time throughout the interview to finally get her to say Morgan’s name or that Morgan had even
Stabbed her I give it back to her and say you do go ballistic and she said okay I’ll gooh bistic whenever when you say you want me to when you hear them describe to investigators and Isa telling Morgan just to do it I think the word was go
Ballistic oh I remember that I do remember them chatting right next to me while I was just laying there Morgan said don’t be afraid I’m only a little kitty cat and uh jumped on top of Bella and stabed her repeatedly and do you remember when it started kind of I didn’t feel
Anything because my body was in shock from the adrenaline I didn’t feel a Thing so at one point during the interview with Morgan and I specifically asked her about who stabbed Payton who stabbed her who the FL who said her first I I supposed to remember that this is just pretty important so TR and trade Ana or me one of those two of
Course but I don’t know Morgan is the person that did all the stabbing I asked Payton how it stopped and she simply said that Morgan just stopped and stared at her that both her and Ana just for a while just stared at her with like this Blank Stare
Have are trying to do the again I if I tell the story differently I’m just trying to make sure that I get it right I thought that she was very aware of what was going on actually very sophisticated after they stabbed her 19 times they encouraged her just to lay
Down in the woods and rest what they really wanted to do was bleed out in the woods do you remember what you said to them I trusted you and then they told me to lay down you’ll lose blood slower like we’re going to go get help did she try to get
Up to get she said that she couldn’t see she couldn’t walk and that she couldn’t breathe and they told her they were going to go get her help but Ana flat out said no we weren’t getting help we wanted her to die do you remember the moment they left
You I think I remember them running away but I kind of just laid there for a minute you walked out of the woods I got up grabbed a couple trees for support I think and then just walked until I hit a patch of grass right I could lay down
It’s amazing that she had the strength to do that with the injuries that she had when I told her that the girls were in custody it seemed to give her a sense of relief the girls were ultimately arrested for first-degree attempt homicide that’s a very serious Charge we were permitted to come to the police station and see Ana I remember her saying she was very very scared that day plays out almost every night in my nightmares Morgan has never hurt a fly it was just Unthinkable that Morgan wood would do anything to
Hurt someone else it wasn’t until the following day that we um knew that she would be churched as an adult the current situation in Wisconsin is there are certain categories of offenses that if they’re committed by an individual over the age of 10 that that individual has to be prosecuted in an adult
Court these 12-year-old girls could face decades Behind Bars questions about whether or not you know they’ll ever be free this law about juveniles being treated like adults for certain crimes was part of a get tough on crime initiative and the goal was to say even if you’re young if you commit a horrible
Heinous crime you’re going to be treated as an adult the flip side of that is when you see a 10 or 11 or 12-year-old charged as an adult suddenly makes you say wait a sec does this make sense it’s Unthinkable to try a 12-year-old child as an adult regardless of what they’ve
Done I mean she was 12 it was weird I felt no one was I thought I would it was worth they tocl worse actually thought nothing there’s something that’s not right with a 12-year-old that’s saying the things that she is but I think she genuinely understood what she did what
Wrong say your do you think that’s right or wrong probably wrong if you right I would you be how should they be punished for this when they’re 12 years old did they know right from wrong you can certainly know what is right from wrong but still have a problem controlling your behavior you
Feel compelled there’s a chance that these two girls did something just simply because they wanted to do it they wanted to experience it I wanted to hurt people before but they’re not nice to me so they deserve it police now have to dig into their childhoods they see if there
Were warning signs missed in her drawers in the closet there were numerous items that were disturbing in nature they found all kinds of strange things going on how typical is it for a 12-year-old to write I want to die you would think that a parent would notice that
Something was going on people wanted to blame the parents for somehow creating monsters you could be looking at a social path Definitely it Wisconsin versus Morgan geyser state of Wisconsin versus Anissa wire because they charged them with attempted first-degree intentional homicide that made the case automatically start in adult court that also led to the judge releasing their pictures seeing Ana in the courtroom in the jumpsuit with the shackles and the
Handcuffs and the belly chain really hit hard it broke my heart that’s what I think gripped The public’s attention was the how extreme that looked to see children shackle that really started the whole split I think of of public opinion on the case between those who saw it as
These are dangerous actors out in the community that need to be locked up forever and those who thought like something’s really wrong with these children I needed help and should be in jual court detectiv now have this information that came from the girls themselves about this plot the bad part of
Me a good part of but obviously police now have to dig into their childhoods see if there were warning signs missed and they come upon some startling evidence the middle school called me and said we want to go through these girls lacquers there was one picture found in
Ana’s lacquer everything else was found in Morgan’s lacer so she had tons of notebooks that had all kinds of writings and drawings related to Slender Man Slender Man was originally created as sort of fanfiction and an extension of the campfire Horror Story these images that were unclear whether they were nurturing or
Threatening one of the first things we did was we talked to Morgan’s parents told the parents don’t go in the bedrooms keep the door closed we’re going to come over there and I’m going to have my investigator process that scene when I first entered Morgan’s bedroom it just looked like a normal
Room for a girl of her age but in her drawers and in the closet there were numerous items that were disturbing in nature they found all kinds of strange things going on their strange drawings dolls that had been mutilated some of the Dolls had their hands cut off arms cut off legs cut
Off they found a lot of things that most people would say geez that should have been a red flag to a parent and yet no indication that a parent ever said hey wait a minute what are you doing here maybe we should get you some help I
Spoke with mom and dad and they had no no idea what was in her room we started to look at some of the emails and we also looked at the computer that Morgan had at her house the iPad that Ana had whenever I’m really bored I go on my iPad and
I go to the I had no idea that besides the school issued email address that she had on her own made a hot mail address and falsified her age a week before this happened Morgan sent Ana an email that said make sure to clean out your browser
History one of the things that shows whether you know right from wrong is saying clear your internet history because we don’t know that we’ve been searching for these things in looking through the geyser home computer there’s literally thousands of internet searches that were done how to get away with
Murder what kind of insane am I she was searching these things ahead of time the school had turned over to me a list of books that Ana and Morgan had checked out of the school library Morgan had checked out books on crime scene investigations the prison system mental
Health conditions I look at it as boy how do I act after this happens what role do I play I definitely had a clear sense of who was the ring leader who was driving this between the two girls it was definitely Morgan during Ana’s interview she was
Being truthful and honest I could tell because she would say that Morgan did AB andc but then she would take responsibility for some things herself completely blame no I don’t think any of this would have had I had told her about whereas Morgan was just putting it
All on ana ana told me we had to she knew tactics that police used she knew the criminal justice system she’s done research on past cases you can’t get more intentional than that you’re preparing you’re planning you’re thinking about this if she wasn’t 12 years old I would think that she was
Some type of sociopath or a seasoned criminal I was hired by the defense to evaluate Morgan I don’t think she was deviously planning I think she was feeling controlled by slender what she would tell me is that she really had no choice but to listen to Slender
Man was it hard for you to W your head around what had been done to you no which I guess says a lot about our friendship I kind of wasn’t really too shocked about it um after I heard why she did it I was like well this doesn’t surprise me at
All because she believed so hard in this thing that she would do anything for it I was angry for a long time especially Morgan’s parents I thought that they were maybe just in denial I don’t think I’ve are you surprised no I wasn’t surprised simply because there is a
Family history her father Yes her father has schizophrenia We have been documenting the story for years and part of this journey has been with the parents of the two girls who were accused of this horrible horrible Crime we try to visit at least once a week on a good week I can get up there two or three times in 2014 Ana was actually sent to the Washington County Juvenile Detention Facility and that’s typically a place kids spend maybe 5 days after they’re arrested these girls just kept sitting
There all these months while the case dragged on the children have no access to the outdoors or even Windows to look out of in the last 35 months Ana’s maybe had 40 hours of fresh air there is no physical contact I can’t wipe away a tear I can’t give her a hug
I can’t kiss her it’s indistinguishable from a jail you go through a metal detector you go through locked doors there are not mental health treatment providers on staff to evaluate provide services and Medicaid individuals there are moments where my heart is so full of sadness that’s when when I put on a mask
I don’t allow myself to break down in front of her and see how much this is this is hurting Me the first time I went to visit her she looked at me and she had sort of this flat expression on her face and she said why are you here what did you think of that moment it’s heartbreaking one of the things we knew people would
Want to know at home were their warning signs did these parents look back the childhoods of their daughters and see something now that perhaps they missed along the way Angie told me the story about showing her daughter Morgan Bambi Bambi come here we had been concerned to show
Morgan the movie we were afraid when Bambi’s mother died she would be devastated that she’d be very upset Mr B don’t look back she in fact had quite the opposite reaction after Bambi’s mother was shot Morgan just said run Bambi run um and had no reaction whatsoever to her the
Mother dying she wasn’t at all concerned about the mom no no not at all did you know anything about Morgan’s fascination with Slender we did we did um you talked about it with her we did um and she would show us some of the pictures and
She would would read us some of the stories do you remember when she first started talking about sundman that was in sixth grade it was early sixth grade when she had met Ana I thought it was really weird and odd I was never into it I just kind of went along with it
Because she was my best friend we had no idea that she believed Slender Man was real did you ever think that you know this is a little too dark for my daughter when I was margin’s age I was reading Stephen King novels I remember being 11 years old and
Writing home from the library on my bike with it under my arm and I that’s a very scary and dark story so I just thought it was normal as this is playing out this whole legal process they’re holding a competency hearing for Morgan geyser and during that hearing it’s suddenly
Revealed that she’s been diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia I’m not a doctor but all the doctors agreed that schizophrenia in a 12-year-old is extremely uncommon it develops later in Life are you surprised no um I wasn’t surprised simply because there is a family history of schizophrenia her father Yes her father has schizophrenia HBO came out with a documentary called beware the Slender Man where Morgan’s father talked about his own schizophrenia like you you can like see it and like you
Know it’s not real it totally doesn’t matter cuz you’re still terrified of it like I know that there’s like I know the devil’s not in the back seat but the devil is in the back seat you know Morgan’s Behavior was directed by her psychotic symptoms Morgan was being
Guided by Voices that were ordering her to kill someone when you look back are there moments when you can see her suffering from that that’s difficult to say she was always kind of a quirky kid but not pathologically so I expected to either get put in prison or in ch they
Didn’t know what to expect I don’t think I’ve been seen them do you feel responsible I think on some level I’ll I’ll always feel responsible for not knowing that my daughter wasn’t well your job as a a mother is to protect your children and to keep them
Safe and of course I felt as though I had failed even then I think there were people who thought well they should have known they should have had her in treatment earlier why didn’t they see that she was schizophrenic at 12 it’s very hard to identify psychosis I don’t think it would have
Been obvious to anyone unless Morgan told them the symptoms she was experiencing for the first 18 or 19 months after her arrest she was not treated and she remained in a very acutely psychotic State these fictional characters Voldemort from the Harry Potter books Spock from Star Trek Thunderman she considered these people
To be her friends she had conversations with them and she was concerned that if she took medications that would make them go away she wouldn’t have anybody to talk to what would you say to them if they were watching the other parents I was angry for a long time that they
Especially Morgan’s parents knowing that Morgan’s dad had schizophrenia and for a long time I thought that they were maybe just in denial and ignoring her symptoms but they recognized that they’re going through their own hell their lawyers are trying to get their case moved out of adult court and into the juvenile
System it’s now the summer of 2015 judge Boren makes a ruling a major ruling tonight from Wisconsin a judge deciding that the two 13-year-old girls will now be tried as adults I’ll order that the defendants disguisers will be retained in the adult jurisdiction each of the girls has pleaded Not Guilty by reason
Of mental defect or disease no question in your mind where they needed to be adult crime is adult court if they had stolen a candy bar sure that’s a child but you tried to kill somebody so it seems the cases are going to trial there’s immense risk going to
Trial because a jury could conclude that she is not only guilty but legally responsible we truly believe that Anissa knew what she was doing was wrong this huge question looms over all of this will these girls be locked up for decades what will the Court decide nearly 3 years have passed since
The so-called Slender Man stabbing attack on a wakashaw sixth grader by her two classmates in 2017 the first of these cases goes to trial it’s Ana’s case the courthouse had areas roped off for the media there were so many people there we had to have security push you know the reporters away from
Us by the time she shows up she looks completely different she looks grown up as opposed to just a few years earlier when we have the mug shot of her at 12 years old and she seems to get it we’re all looking forward to this kind of
Coverage and then we hear that Ana has played guilty and cut a deal that means were anticipated in the offense once she enters into this plea there’s then a separate trial in effect to determine what should be the punishment they would go to trial simply on whether she suffered from a mental
Disease or defect and should not be held criminally responsible so the jury now has to decide should she have to go to prison or should she simply go to a mental institution we’re in the record in the State versus it’s basically both sides going for rope
On the day this happened she did it because she wanted something out of it she wanted to be Morgan’s friend on the other side of the course they saw just the opposite the evidence will show that at the time this occurred Ana’s broken mind caused her to lose touch with
Reality anda’s lawyers were arguing that she was delusional the bulk of the defense’s case was mental health experts they called three of them to back up the defense’s argument that Ana was mentally I was hired specifically by the court to do an evaluation of Ana did you find a
Diagnosed disorder for Ana yes I did diagnose her with a disorder Ana was diagnosed with shared psychotic disorder there’s an old French word right for F which is madness shared by two three different doctors or experts all agreed that as rare as it is she happened to meet another 12-year-old who
Was more y than she was and kind of got caught up in her own delusions and what they call a shared delusion you have a new girl that comes into school who’s desperate for a friend being introduced to a girl who’s having some mental health problems and then they have the
Shared interest interest and you couple that with the fact that they’re 12 years old and still retaining some of the magical thinking of childhood and it’s this perfect storm they belied they had to do it I was really scared KN that heav because essentially was protecting their family they needed to kill
Somebody to prove themselves to Slender Man and that their families would be safe prosecutors were saying she knew exactly what she was do when they stabbed pton and point to a very specific moment in the interrogation the first line that she tells me in my interview was saying the
Silly thing about this was I didn’t know I was in danger until After Moran P that statement is to me the most powerful statement in the whole case well if she didn’t know that slender man had made the threat till after she did it that couldn’t have been what motivated her to stab pyton if that’s not what motivated her what is is it
Possible that we have that extremely rare thing going on here which is we just have an evil 12-year-old the case goes to the jury and they deliberate for 11 hours it took quite a while I think the final verdict didn’t come in until like 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. the time had
Come and N wire sitting in that courtroom shaking has the jury reach the Verdi yes she’s about to hear what the punishment will be and where she’ll be sent Lisa wire was found not guilty of a reason of mental disease or defect in the end the jury decides she should be
Committed to uh state mental institution rather than going to chis with that I will order that should be committed to the Department of Health Services a late night verdict in the Slenderman trial the decision not to send Ana wire to prison their decision was Humane and the actions of a 12-year-old didn’t
Deserve the hares punishment age was everything if you’re an adult when you say you didn’t understand right from wrong that’s an argument that almost never succeeds but when you were 12 at the time it happened you got a much stronger argument but it’s up to the judge now the judge will
Decide how long she’ll be sent away we argued strongly for 25 years Miss W do you want to say anything I know that nothing I say is going to make this right your honor and nothing I say is going to fix what I broke I’m never
Going to let this happen again and I’m sorry ultimately judge borne committed Ana for the maximum period of time with that then I commit Ana wers for a period of 25 years after spending 25 years in a mental inst stitution my fear is that she will not really know how to interact
With normal people at Walmart at the gas station at pick and safe all of the focus now shifts to Morgan Geer and Morgan is the one who actually stabbed P I’m Sorry never this to happen Ana wire will be heading to a mental hospital rather than prison so now you have one of these girls Ana wire found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and all of the focus now shifts to Morgan geyser it becomes clear to prosecutors
That they’re not going to be able to convince a jury to send Morgan who is even more mentally ill to a prison Morgan’s lawyers end up cutting a deal with prosecutors I’ll be blunt one of the reasons we did that is clearly Morgan is much more psychologically
Damaged what did you make of what you heard I remember feeling sad at Morgan’s sentencing hearing because she was not the girl I remembered so that was sad for me Miss geyser would you like to say anything I just want to let Ella and her family know I’m sorry never just
Happen what would you want to say to them I’m so sorry for what Peyton went through and for what they must have gone through and I would take it back if I could do you accept their apologies I don’t think I’m there yet we’re still healing and we’re still trying try to
Rebuild our lives so it’s still a little hard the length of the commitment I believe is appropriated 40 years and that’ll be the order of the Court 15-year-old Morgan geyser sentenced in Wisconsin today to 40 years in a mental institution if Morgan had never met Ana I think Morgan probably would have acted
Out in some other way would it have been this violence I don’t know but Morgan was ready to do something and she found Anissa to put it all on Morgan or say she led this I think underestimates the power of schizophrenia it underestimates the power of the internet to influence
People to behave in ways they wouldn’t behave in real life I really think it was them working as a team you’re convinced that it was a toxic combination yes that one fed into the other mhm for pton Lightner it was months recovering from the physical wounds but the lingering question was how long
Would it take for her to recover emotionally I know you how frightened were you still I slept in my mom’s bed for a while just cuz I didn’t want to be alone I still sleep with like a broken pair of scissors underneath the pillow next to
Me just in case to this day it just makes me feel safer do you think that’ll ever go away I hope so but for now I don’t think so did you ever think you would get her to where she is today she had so much determination to not be defined by this
Event and not be the girl who was stabbed that I really think that it’s her determination to live a different kind of life that’s what’s gotten us here I’ve come to accept all of the scars that I have when you see them do you see a Survivor I just see myself
What she has taught me is strength and will just the sheer will to get through anything there were so many moving full circle moments to this story of Pon Lightner it’s pretty good after pton had gone back to school the man who would be made school resource officer would be
Dan Klein up there is a school that she goes to and I thought that’s really cool I was the first officer on scene to see her and now I’m going to have the opportunity to protect her he has said that he feels way sort of lucky that
He’s still able to watch over you yeah I really like officer Dan he’s a great person it didn’t work this time obviously and we’re never going to try again because I hope I never have to see Morgan geyser Ana wire they’re both 17 now they’re both being held at the
Winnebago Mental Health Institute and this was the picture that Morgan’s mother posted of her not so long ago on Facebook it’s not where you picture of your daughter no you know I see on social media my friends and family who have children Morgan’s age and they’ll
Post pictures of them driving a car um you know going to homecoming you know it’s it’s it’s hard one of the things I asked Angie would they still be able to live in wakaa and she sat across from me and said we’re going to move you know I
Frequently drive by these places that hold horrible memories and I just want to get us all away from that every 6 months under Wisconsin law you can petition the court for release from a mental hospital I know at some point we’ll start seeing the petitions for release
And we be back in W County I think Morgan could rejoin the community if not immediately in the very near future wakaa is not a big city and so if she was released you know you could honestly run into each other at the grocery store nor the
Park Payton is her senior year of high school she’s going to move on to big wonderful things she’s going to go off to college so I think right now I think it’s too soon all right that’s going to come back to J Bo again and he can
Decide you did this once I’m not convinced I think it takes 10 more years and deny it she could go back to the hospital so that’s her uncertain future do you fear for the day that either one of them is back out in the community no because if they ever come
Near me they’re going right back in so so you don’t walk around with that no when they get out I don’t think it’s going to change my life at all if she were released today do you think she would be in danger to soci iety no Morgan’s untreated mental
Illness is what made her a danger and she is no longer a danger you talked about Morgan’s mother mhm and you have thought about her yeah I thought about what she’s going through and how hard it must be for her because I’m sure a lot of people are saying that it was her
Fault like she raised her wrong and like it wasn’t her fault Morgan’s schizophrenic she’s writing a letter she did write a letter to Payton yes would you read it to us dear Bella I wish I had words that could make everything better but I don’t so all I
Can say is how sorry I am and I can promise you not a will go by that I don’t regret what I did stay strong Morgan I mean it’s a nice gesture and I appreciate it but there’re just words on a piece paper if she saw this interview
What what would you want to say to her o there’s a lot that I would want to say to her I’m happy I have good friends that I trust pretty much but I imagine that the trust part is the hardest part yeah I would
Say that trust is a big big thing for me but you’ve worked on that I’m trying yeah this happened at 4:30 in the morning what do you make of your sister’s Survivor story I think it it really brings a lot of people hope people knowing that even when you’re
Down so far under and you think there’s no way you can get out of something there’s always a way that you can survive when you go through something like this it’s really really challenging on families on marriages Stacy and Joe their marriage didn’t survive this and
This is a sign of the true cost of tragedy I know that the two of you have been tested what does just being here together for your children what kind of message do you hope that that sends a sense of unity in for the kids for the
Family we will always do what we need to do for them we’ll do it together because they are the most important thing to us have you all taken any time for yourselves to give yourself credit for how far the family has come since this yeah I don’t want credit for
It because truly it was Stacy that did everything and I’m truly thankful for that there’ll be people talking about this forever there was just a endless Fascination we can’t change what’s on the internet but we can change whether our kids access it and if they do access
It how they process it I think that the whole dangers of the internet thing that’s probably the simplest thing people will remember but I think what we found out from the case was if Morgan weren’t schizophrenic probably this doesn’t Happen one of the things I will never forget from this interview with pton Lightner all these years later is what she said to me when I asked what would you say to Morgan geyser if you saw her today if she saw this interview what would you want to say to her oo there’s
A lot that I would want to say to her I would probably initially thank her I would say because of what she did I have the life I have now which I really really like it you do know that when people hear you say I would probably
Thank her mhm that they’re going to be surprised yeah I’m surprised to hear myself say that why because I wouldn’t think that someone who went through what I did would ever say that but that’s truly how I feel like without the whole situation I wouldn’t be who I am stronger
Mhm what happened to me has made me who I am and I love It pton is such a brave young woman and David I know you’ve spent time with her over the past five years before she eventually decided to talk yeah and you know her mother and father and brother deserves so much credit here because they have been by her side from the very
Beginning on this but they’re the first to tell you and this is what they told me uh that this is all pton and her strength that has carried them through so pton thank you for talking with us tonight and Amy I know that you know we
Have a note about a member of our own family here tonight our beloved colleague Lauren Brennan who lost her battle with ovarian cancer this week she’d been with ABC news for 16 years she worked so tirelessly to get us on the air every week here always with a
Smile a laugh always with her incredible warmth you know we celebrated the birth of her miracle twins not so long ago and tonight we share our grief and our love with her husband Jerry and those children and everyone who loved her including her family right here good Night
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