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Payton Leutner was twelve years old when she crawled out of the woods, bleeding from nineteen stab wounds, after being attacked by her two friends during a game of hide-and-seek in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The weapon was a five-inch-long kitchen knife. The motive: to appease a fictional character born from internet horror stories—Slender Man.
The Slender Man stabbing case is about three twelve-year-old girls: Payton Leutner, Morgan Geyser, and Anissa Weier. Geyser and Leutner were best friends since childhood. Both lived in Waukesha, a city in southeastern Wisconsin with a population of about 70,000. Anissa Weier became close to Geyser after they discovered a shared fascination with creepypasta—horror stories circulating online, especially those about Slender Man, a faceless, unnaturally tall humanoid invented on the Something Awful forum by Eric Knudsen in 2009. While Geyser and Weier bonded over these stories, Leutner reportedly found Slender Man frightening and did not share their obsession.
By fall 2013, Geyser and Weier’s interest in Slender Man became an obsession. They started to believe the character was real, capable of hurting them and their families unless they offered him a sacrifice. The plan formed: to kill Leutner and prove Slender Man’s existence. The girls discussed killing their friend in her sleep or in a public bathroom before the attack in the woods. They hesitated both times, but on May 31, 2014, they carried out their plan.
That morning, the three girls met at a sleepover, then walked to Davids Park, a wooded area near their neighborhood. They told Leutner they wanted to play hide-and-seek. As the game started, Geyser and Weier pinned Leutner down. Geyser stabbed her nineteen times, hitting her arms, legs, and torso. Two stab wounds struck major organs: one pierced her diaphragm, slicing into her liver and stomach, and another missed a major artery by less than a millimeter. After the attack, Geyser and Weier instructed Leutner to lie down, covering herself with leaves, claiming they would find help. Instead, they left her alone and set off on foot for Chequamegon–Nicolet National Forest, more than 200 miles away, believing they could find Slender Man.
Leutner managed to drag herself to a nearby road, leaving a trail of blood. There, a cyclist found her and called emergency services. Surgeons operated for six hours to stop the internal bleeding and repair her damaged organs. Dr. John Kelemen later stated that if the knife had gone a hair’s width further, Leutner would not have survived. She left the hospital seven days after the attack and returned to school in September 2014.
Five hours after the stabbing, police found Geyser and Weier near a Steinhafels furniture store along Interstate 94, nearly five miles from the crime scene. The girls were carrying the knife used in the attack. During interrogation, they calmly described their plan and their belief in Slender Man. The officers learned that the girls thought killing for Slender Man would keep their families safe and make them his “proxies,” a term from the online mythos describing humans under the creature’s control.
As the investigation unfolded, police and psychiatric evaluators discovered Geyser’s history of hallucinations. She described seeing figures she called ghosts, colors dripping down walls, and imaginary friends named Maggie and Sev. Geyser also spoke of a recurring hallucination—“It”—a faceless man with a body like smoke and ink who appeared in mirrors and shadows. During her time in juvenile detention, correctional officers reported that Geyser talked to herself, pretended to be a cat, kept ants as pets, and claimed ongoing conversations with Slender Man and fictional characters like Severus Snape and one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In October 2014, Geyser was diagnosed with early-onset childhood schizophrenia. Psychiatrists found that Geyser’s treatment for schizophrenia had been erratic for nearly two years, worsening her delusions. Once she began a consistent regimen of antipsychotics in late 2015, she showed remorse for the crime. Both girls underwent months of psychiatric evaluations to determine if they were competent to stand trial.
In 2017, both Geyser and Weier were tried as adults in Waukesha County. The charges were severe: Geyser faced attempted first-degree intentional homicide, a Class A felony with a maximum penalty of 40 years in a mental health institution; Weier was charged with attempted second-degree homicide, a Class B felony carrying a 25-year maximum. Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree homicide. A jury found her not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and she was sentenced to 25 years in a state psychiatric institute, with the possibility of supervised release after three years. Geyser pleaded guilty, and court-appointed psychiatrists confirmed her schizophrenia diagnosis. She was also found not guilty by reason of insanity and given the maximum sentence—40 years of involuntary commitment.
Weier was released in September 2021 after seven years, under strict conditions including 24-hour GPS monitoring, restrictions on internet use, and no contact with Leutner until 2039. She was required to live with her father and take court-mandated psychiatric medication. Geyser remained institutionalized until 2025, when a judge approved a plan for her supervised release to a group home in Madison. Her release plan required close supervision, periodic reevaluations, and kept her under state watch until 2058.
The Slender Man stabbing sparked a nationwide debate about the power of internet fiction and its potential influence on young minds. The Waukesha School District blocked access to Creepypasta Wiki, the main website for Slender Man stories, within days of the attack. Eric Knudsen, the creator of Slender Man, released a statement expressing deep sadness and condolences to the families involved. Administrators from the Creepypasta community insisted that their website was about creative writing, not real-world violence, and organized a 24-hour YouTube livestream to raise money for Leutner’s recovery.
The case also triggered a moral panic around Slender Man and similar internet-born characters. In August 2014, Governor Scott Walker proclaimed “Purple Hearts for Healing Day” in Wisconsin, encouraging people to wear purple to honor Leutner’s strength during her recovery. A bratwurst festival in Madison raised over $70,000 for her medical costs, run by more than 250 volunteers.
The debate about internet influence grew louder. Some, like retired FBI agent John Egelhof, called the internet a “black hole” that exposed children to danger, warning parents to better monitor online activity. Others, including mass media professor Shira Chess, argued that creepypasta stories were no more dangerous than tales of vampires or zombies, and that writing communities provided creative outlets for young people.
After the stabbing, similar incidents were reported. In Cincinnati, a 13-year-old girl attacked her mother with a knife and had written fiction about Slender Man. In Port Richey, Florida, a 14-year-old girl set her house on fire after reading Slender Man stories and manga. On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a 2015 epidemic of suicide attempts among young people saw Slender Man cited as an influence by some, with tribal leaders noting similarities between Slender Man and traditional “suicide spirit” legends.
The Slender Man stabbing inspired several works in popular culture, including the HBO documentary Beware the Slenderman, released in 2016 and broadcast in January 2017. The film included interviews with the families involved and explored the internet culture surrounding the character. The 2018 movie Slender Man generated controversy for allegedly exploiting the Waukesha case, with protests and petitions against its release.
Leutner survived and, in a 2019 interview, said she was recovering but still slept with broken scissors out of fear. She credited the experience with inspiring her to pursue a career in medicine.
In July 2025, a judge approved Geyser’s release plan, allowing her to live in a group home under supervision until 2058.