Transcript of True Crime Vault: The Wicked

I'm John Quinones. Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier, vanishes while on duty at an army base in Texas. Her family demands answers. How can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous. The search goes on for months. Where is Vanessa? Where is Vanessa? And a dark story starts to unfold. She told her family that she was being sexually harassed and wasn't reporting it out of fear of retribution and retaliation. What investigators finally uncover is horrifying. Find out how one soldier, a beloved sister and daughter, ignited a movement and sparked a reckoning in the US military. Listen to Vanished: What Happened to Vanessa? A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen now wherever you get your podcast. This is the 2020 True Crime Vault. So many people have followed this story for so long, including us, and this is the first time that Payton Leightner 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 lured the victim into the woods, and all three of the girls are twelve years old.

We have no idea that she believed Slender Man was real. What did she do next? Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Was there any part of it where you thought, I might not survive this? What were you trying to do with her when you stabbed her? Kill her. I might as well just say it. We were trying to kill her. If she saw this interview, what would you want to say to her? Tonight, the David Nior exclusive, the 2-Hour, 2020 event begins now. The whole time, Pippin was screaming, You're being an egg. Are you going to put me in prison, and 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? How did you stay up on your best friend? I thought about it, but then I decided that it was more so than get me nowhere. He is here to live without regrets. Now for that shocking story out of Wisconsin. The brutal stabbing of a twelve-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 media coverage was overwhelming. The suspect lured the victim into the woods. All three of the girls are twelve years old. And as full details of this case start to circulate, people that I talk to literally have no words. It was just a hard story for everyone to get their head around. Three twelve-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 twelve-year-old girl, Payton Leightner. She's from Waukesha, Wisconsin. And she likes what so many young girls like. And had she gone on sleepovers before? Oh, yeah. And this was just her best friend's birthday party. It was just another Friday night. But this was a party that was going to celebrate her best friend, and they were talking about it for weeks. Payton was so, so excited. Go back five years ago to 12-year-old Payton.

How would you describe her? Hopeful, positive, an animal lover. I saw the good in people. Payton 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 didn't want her to be alone. She was my only friend for a long time. Why was your friend your only friend? It was necessary. There was a third girl, Anissa. Who was your name? Anissa Ware. Anissa, okay. She was new to the school that year. She became friends, mostly with Morgan. So the three of them had begun to spend time together. It was a Friday night. Yeah, we went to Skateland. I've always been pretty good at roller skiing, so I was going around doing my own thing. We were at Skateland having a good time. Did you guys talk about the plan at all? No. Payton had no idea that the other two girls had been planning, had been plotting, And what was supposed to be a typical joyful slumber party was instead really a dark plan to try to lure Payton in.

What were you expecting these young girls to be doing? Well, Payton 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 dolls and spending some time on the Internet. They played up in Morgan's bedroom, ran up and down the stairs, giggling and laughing. I mean, it was just a normal night. I wanted to give her at least one more morning. The next morning, then they wake up, they have breakfast, they play games, they then go to the park. We're going to do it today at the park. That's what Morgan 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 the three of us. And then we said that we were going to play hide and seek. It happened really fast. I'm saying, Dear God, this is really 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. What did you do with him? Because I was afraid of what would happen if they didn't. And you never had any idea that there was any police? No. My name's Dan Klein. I'm a police officer for the City of Waukesha Police Department. Waukesha is a suburb of Milwaukee. 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 degrees. Gorgeous day out. I thought, Well, the earlier I get in, the earlier I get out and put in my 8. My first call of the day was a pretty easy call. The Family Video Store is one of our local Mom and Pa shops. They rent videos, one of the only ones left in the area that I'm aware of. On their marquee, they had a phrase that was supposed to say, Hot Hit Sail, and someone had rearrange the letters overnight to a very inappropriate message. I was chuckling about it. I was 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. I'm transferring over a collar on, big bend. He came upon a 12-year-old female. She appears to be being stabbed. She appears to be what? Stabbed. Stabbed? Correct. 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 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 when he found Payton. I quick got out my cell phone. I was shaken 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-No. 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 because 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 And she began to tell him what had happened to her, he was in disbelief. Somebody's coming. Are you here any minute? We did that to you. The road that she was located on was Big Ben Road at the dead end of that. Payton wasn't moving a whole lot. 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 close The closer I started to see a little bit more blood, and the closer I got, the more blood I saw. Somehow, she had 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 twelve. 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 remove with her clothing by cutting it off and got her on the journey and into the ambulance. I could see multiple wounds on her. She was able to somehow communicate with them in that moment that this was a knife that had been used. They asked, How long was the knife? And she said that the knife was out like this. And she was talking about the blade, not the handle. I was waiting in the ER, and Payton was brought in by stretcher. The look on her face It was something that I will never forget.

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 information from her in case that she does die. I confirmed with her that Morgan did the stabbing. I confirmed that she was in the woods at the time, and that there was another girl there at the time when this happened. When Detective Trisoney hears this, that she's been stabbed by her friends, she knows she has got to get to Payton's mom, Stacy, 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, very collected. She knew that something was going on. I don't think she knew exactly to what extent it was. They said, Is Payton home? And I said, No. And they said, Was she at 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 the wounds 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 trauma 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, What? Seven? What? And one of the The nurse says, All right, I count 19. And then the second nurse said, I count 19 as well. 19? What? 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.

Stacey 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 are definitely moments from that day. They're burned into my mind. I'll never forget them. 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 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? If she had it not, she would have had a major heart attack from the amount of bleeding and probably died within a minute or two. And now police decide they got to go to Morgan Geyser's house to figure out how this happened, what was behind this. 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 Anissa, and the three girls left earlier in the morning for the park, and they had I haven't heard from them since.

They searched the house, and I just kept asking, What happened? What's going on? And 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, Anissa, that was there, we were able to get in contact with Anissa'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 Anissa. We searched 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.

Christie Wire said that she had found Anissa'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 do you think you're here today? It is a scene you rarely see. Two twelve-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 twelve-year-old girl is stabbed, leading to a big police search in Waukesha. 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. There were squad cars zooming everywhere. A major search by ground and air. At one point, I heard a helicopter overhead. You never hear a helicopter. We called in additional resources. We had canine 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 Waukeshal girl is stabbed 19 times. These are the woods where the stabbing actually happened. A massive search for two girls who with the victim before she got hurt. We have absolutely 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. Morgan was a very happy child. She was intensely creative. She was always making up songs and stories. Vanessa did enjoy choir. She did enjoy singing. Bring back. Bring... Back. Oh, bring back my body to me. Anissa was very imaginative. She would always imagine a bigger and a better life for her barbells. Looking back, Anissa 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 mootier 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 were at first on scene, Christie Wire, Aneesa's mom had called me and said that she had found Aneesa'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 a message that the Sheriff's Department had located the girls on the side of I-94. 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 them, they had walked about five 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 how we were going to punish Morgan for this. I mean, we just had no idea how serious it was. When they brought the girls When she came back, Payton was actually still in surgery, and 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 dirty, covered in some stains. Their demeanor was very calm. They seemed 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 in excruciating detail what it is that played out in the woods. I could tell that they were somewhat scared. At least Anissa was showing me that emotion. Your parents know that you're here talking to me, okay? And they're scared. They're so glad that you're safe. I did notice she had a blood stain on the front of her shirt, and she was wearing two shirts.

And I asked her, Are you okay? Can you stand up and stand? There you go. Just like... Right there. Okay. And it's on a white shirt underneath that. And it's on the shirt underneath it, too? Mm-hmm. Okay. What is your name? Anissa West. I'm listening. Okay. Here you go. All right. Morgan seemed like she was very calm. Girl, can you wear it on your screen? Very relaxed. I mean, she's at a police Department, and she's covered in blood. And this is a normal day for her. All right. He's going to help us out. We're going to take some photographs of you right now. Okay. Do you mind just standing up maybe? All right. Just stand up like that. Perfect. What is your name again, Mike? Morgan. All right. Do you know what happened to Bella? Morgan called Payton by the name of Bella. She said there was a nickname because there was another girl named Payton. Is she dead? I don't know. She went to take her to the hospital. What? I was just wondering. She was very nonchalant. It didn't seem like it really concerned her too much if she was dead or alive.

The first thing I needed to do in order to talk to Anissa and find out what happened, I needed to read to her her Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent. If you decide to give up that right, anything you say may be used against you in court. Apart from the law, it is jarring to see twelve-year-olds being interrogated without their parents present. If you can add a 400 in attorney, one would be provided to you by the courts. I'm just saying these rights. You don't talk to me about the name. Here in the state of Wisconsin, a child can be interrogated without the presence of their parents 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 can do a favor and a initial right there and sign right there. I thought that she really did understand what her rights were and made a knowledgeable decision to waive 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 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 stabbed her? Kill her. I might as well just say it. We were trying to kill her. So why did you pick Payton? I didn't pick her. Who picked her? Whoever Aneesa was talking about. She made it seem necessary. My thought was, why would she do this? There's this website full of horror stories, and there is one of them called Slender Man. Who the heck is Slender Man? We had to prove ourselves were they to slender. To think that two 12-year-olds would come up with something like this and plan it out for six months. As soon as I heard, I knew that this was going to be a big deal. Come to me, come to me. Tron is back. Are you serious? And it must be seen on the biggest screen possible. Experience mind-blowing visuals in one of the best film scores of all time. I I just can't get enough.

It's the game-changing. Hang on. Cinematic spectacle. Oh, my God. You've been waiting for. How cool is that? Tron Aries, ready to be GD 13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters this Friday. Get tickets now. 911, what's your emergency? We got a tornado. It's coming right at us. Abc Thursday, the 911 universe expands to Nashville. How far out is that tornado? Two miles. From executive producer Ryan Murphy. Get everyone you can and send them out here now. Chris O'Donnell, Jessica Capshaw, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Leanne Rimes. We are on the move. The hell to save, kid. 911 Nashville, series premiere Thursday, 9: 00 AM Central on ABC and stream next day on Hulu. So now you have Morgan Geyser and Denisa Wire in separate rooms, interrogated for hours. And to this day, what you see on those interrogation tapes is simply chilling. What's your room? Is that you talk to a little bit more comfortable here? I have a daughter that's almost the same age as her. 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. This is why you get me a rest, isn't it?

Can I just get a quick question? Sure. She didn't realize the enormity of this. If I just wanted to know how far I walk because I'm usually not very athletic and just want to know. In that moment, I thought, All right, I am talking to a 12-year-old. So did you guys talk about doing this beforehand? And he just told me we had to. Why? Because she said that he'd kill her family. Who was he? A man. I didn't know him, but Anissa knew him. She began explaining right away about something from the Internet. There's this website called the Creepy Basta Wiki. It full of horror stories that are meant to purposely scare you. And there's one of them called Slender Man. We all remember growing up, there was always the folklore, the spooky stories that would be shared among kids 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 happily playing on a playground with a Slender Man in the background, and the other one was a more pensive picture.

The story that went with it explained that these were photos that were taken right before a bunch of children had gone missing, and that was it. Who's Slender Man? He's He's this tall faceless man who pray on children. He could be anywhere from 6 feet to 14 feet tall. He's a tall guy who constantly wears a suit. He doesn't have a face. His skin is white. Anissa actually was the first one who had found Slender Man in the creepy pasta wikis, the stories that were out there about Slender Man. At his own will, he could exploit these tendrils from his back and strangle his victim for build a creepy pasta. When he said he targets children best. Who tells you about him? He's everywhere. How do you know? Because I've read so many things about him. It's 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 Man. 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 Slender Man. His every little thing looks like him, and I'm starting to see him everywhere, and I'm dreaming about him. 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 because I saw him. We were talking to the bus. I look out the window and I see this Suppose a snake is standing like this with tendrils, looks exactly like a tree.

They are gone like that. The facelessness of the character makes him infinitely interpretable. There were a lot of different variations out there, and the girls found a version that complemented the things that they wanted to believe. Anissa explained to me that to prove yourself worthy to slender, you would have to kill somebody. Morgan said, We have to kill Bella. Then they were going to walk to the Nikolai forest to try to find Slender Man. Morgan found out that there has a big mansion in the middle of an Gillette 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 What did she look 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. She was my only friend for a long Why would you hurt your friend your only friend? It was necessary. It wasn't until sixth grade that Anissa came into the picture. Anissa 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. Were you so close to 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 as weird. Were you ever really friends with Anissa? 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 Man, it came to dominate her thoughts, and she got closer to Anissa and a little more distant from Payton. I didn't really understand what we were doing, but I really didn't want to make Anissa mad. It's hard enough to make friends. I don't want to lose someone I'm still not sure what it means to kill somebody. Do you understand what it means to kill someone? I mean, I've seen stories on the news, but I never fully understood what it meant to kill somebody until now. As she's explaining it to me, I'm digesting it, and I'm thinking, Where is this going to lead? Morgan handed me with ice. And then I started to count again.

Five feet away, I said, Now, go ballistic, go crazy. That's a stone-cold thought. What did you think was going to happen after you stabbed Aiden? I don't really know. I figured that it'd get me in trouble eventually, though. 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 Trisoni, and we 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 six 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 flawless plan, actually. I think they wanted to kill Payton because they felt Payton was accessible in that way. 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.

Granted, the bus was really loud, but I think a couple are use droppers. We used coworkers like for knife, we meant we used cracker, and for the killing, we would use words like itch. There are actually three plans that were devised to kill Payton. Where did said that At her birthday party, while Bella was sleeping, we were going to duck the camera shut, stab her in the neck, and then leave. Morgan was going 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: 00 in the morning. She would wake up Anissa. But we didn't stab her that we were too sleepy, tired, hungry. We're at Skateland. That was the original plan? Yeah, until it changed. So 5: 30 in the morning, comes and they wake up. They get up and start playing with Silly Puddy and playing with their iPad and playing dress up. And while Payton is putting on a pink princess dress, the two start talking, and they start devising plan number two. When we said, Hey, we could go to the park and kill her in one of the bathroom shelves.

Was Bella around in that time? Yeah, we were playing dress up, and Bella was putting on a costume in the bathroom. It's mind boggling. How do you, one minute, want to play like a normal twelve-year-old and then switch back to, Oh, wait, we're going to kill her? We asked for the long as we could go down to the park. Because we were going to do it down to the bathroom and sit around the toilet. There was a drain for blood to go down. And when did she take the knife? She took it before we Who left? Where did she get it from? Her kitchen. So who left the house with it? I think Anissa did. It was in the bag. To me, she was trying to deflect the blame from herself back on to Anissa. How did you know that she That's the correct one. Because she showed it to me as we were walking to the park. Morgan lifts up her jacket and shows Anissa that she's got this knife in her waistband. What were you thinking? I was thinking, Dear God, this is really happening. And she told us we had to kill her.

Who did? Anissa. There was a lot of deception in Morgan's interview. It seems like Anissa is saying this is what happened. But when you listen to Morgan, she always says, Well, I think that Anissa did it. I think this happened. I think Anissa told me to. Anissa might as well. It's foggy because 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 passing the knife back and forth. From what I read, it's easy to kill people when they're either asleep or unconscious. And it's also easier if you do not look them in the eyes. Anissa tells me that she actually tries to knock Payton out. I went like that to her forehead, banged her head up against the concrete. And you were doing this knock her out so you guys could kill her in there? Yeah. They lose their nerve. They don't kill her at that point. They 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 to Morgan the trees and bushes and all that and say, We could take her in there and do the deed. We led her there and tricked her. How did you trick her to get down there? We said that we were going to go birdwatching. People who trust you become very gullible, and it was sure it was sad. 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 would go off and count, and that Payton and Anissa should go hide. She was going to hide one place. I was going to hide another. And then Morgan and I were going to be like, Why are you not chasing down the same road? I was going to tackle her, and then Morgan was going to do the static. Anissa 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 when I was five feet away, I said, Now. I'm like, I'm going to go crazy, make sure she's down.

I couldn't believe these words were coming out of a twelve-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 writing their own story. They're living their own creepy pasta story. They would look at that video and say, See? She's bloodless. She's just cold-hearted. 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? 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 brakes 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? What man would let this happen to his family? Inspired by shocking actual events. I'm working on a story about the Murdoch's.

Their abuses of power are playing out in real-time. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clarke. It's the only cheating if you get caught. Hulu Original Series, Murdoch: Death and the Family, premieres October 15th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. For bundle subscribers, terms apply. Eight years ago, I blew my football career. He dropped it at the one-yard work. Chad powers has arrived on Hulu. If I can't play as Russ, I'll play as someone else. My name's Chad. And last name? Liza. From executive producers Eli and Peyton Manning. Remember, you're wearing a prosthetic mask. This is acting. And starring Glenn Powell. He thinks you're a rubber chew teller. Not rubber. I'm a man. Made of flesh. The Hulu original series Chad powers, is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. New episodes Tuesdays. So many people have followed this story for so long, including us. And this is the first time that Payton Leitner is talking. Hey, then, Mark and I be like, Why are you chasing down the scene, bro? 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 Muir exclusive, the 2-Hour 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 that had planned for six 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 you a question? Yes. Where is Bella's body now? Bella's at the hospital. Okay. I thought it was still down there. The crime team, did you think that she died? Yeah. 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 asked to go to the hospital to interview Payton. 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 Waukeshal. What bad stuff happens in Waukeshal, Wisconsin? After we go into the woods, we say we're going to put you high and seek. Anissa told me to lie on the ground and cover myself in 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 go ballistic whenever when you say you want me to. When you hear them describe to investigators, Anissa, 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 a kidy catch and jumped on top of Bella and stabbed 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, I specifically asked her about who stabbed Payton. Who stabbed her? Both of us. Who stabbed her first? How am I supposed to remember that? No, this is just pretty important. So she got to try to come in raise. Anissa or me, one of us 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 Anissa, for a while, just stared at her with this blank stare. You know what happened? Are you trying to do this over and over again and see if I tell the I'm 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. For what they really wanted They were going 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. We're going to go get help. Did she try to get up? Yeah, she tried to get up. 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 Anissa flat out said, No, we weren't getting her help. We wanted her to die. Do you remember the moment they left you? I think I remember them running away, but I just laid there for a minute. You walked out of the woods. I got up, grabbed a couple of trees for support, I think, and then just walked until I hit a patch of grass where 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 Anissa.

I remember her saying she was very, very scared. That day plays out almost every night in my nightmares. Morgan has never heard a fly. It was just unthinkable that Morgan would do anything to hurt someone else. It wasn't until the following day that we knew that she would be charged 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 they'll ever be free. This law about juveniles being treated like adults for certain crimes was part of a get a 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 When you see a 10 or 11 or 12-year-old charged as an adult, it suddenly makes you say, Wait a second. 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 remorse. I thought I would. Because were they due to the remorse? I actually felt nothing. There's something that's not right with a twelve-year-old that's saying the things that she is. But I think she genuinely understood what she did was wrong. But how about Sandy, you heard, you think that's right or wrong? Probably wrong. If it were right, it wouldn't 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 to 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 there. 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. State of 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 Anissa 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 to see how extreme that looked, to see children shackled. That really started the whole split, I think, 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. They needed help and should be in juvenile court. Detectives now have this information that came from the girls themselves about this plot. The bad part of me wanted her to die. I'm the good part of me wanted her to live.

But obviously, police now have to dig into their childhoods to 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' lockers. There was one picture found in Anissa's locker. Everything else was found in Morgan's locker. So she had tons of notebooks that had all kinds of writings and drawings related to Slender Man. Slender Man was originally created as a fan fiction 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. There are 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, Jeez, 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 idea what was 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 Anissa 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 made a hotmail address and falsified her age. A week before this happened, Morgan sent Anissa an email that said, Make sure to clean out your browser history. One of the things that shows whether you're in the right from wrong is saying, clear your Internet history, because we don't already 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 an insane am I? She was searching these things ahead of time. The school had turned over to me a list of books that Anissa 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 Aneesa's interview, she was being truthful and honest. I could tell because she would say that Morgan did A, B, and C, but then she would take responsibility for some things herself. Is there any more that you're completely to blame for it. No. I don't think any of this would have happened if I had told her about her being boxed. Whereas Morgan was just putting it all on Anissa. Anissa 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 Man. What she would tell me is that she really had no choice but to listen to Slender Man. Was it hard for you to wrap your head around what had been done to you? No, which I I guess, says a lot about our friendship. I wasn't really too shocked about it. 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 been seen. 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 this 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 out there two or three times. In 2014, Anissa was actually sent to the Washington County Juvenile Detention Facility. And that's typically a place kids spend maybe five 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, Anissa'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 I can't 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 individual. Struggles. There are moments where my heart is so full of sadness. That's when I put on a mask. I don't allow myself to break down in front of her and see how much this is hurting me. The first time I went to visit her, she looked at me and she had this flat expression on her face, and she said, Why are you here?

What did you think in 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 at 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. Master Bambi, don't look back. She, in fact, had quite the opposite reaction. After Bambi's mother was shot, Morgan just said, Run, Bambi, run. It had no reaction whatsoever to the mother dying. She wasn't at all concerned about the mom? No, not at all. Did you know anything about Morgan's fascination with Slender Man? We did. You talked about it with her? We did. And she would show us some of the pictures, and she would read us some of the stories. Do you Do you remember when she first started talking about Slender Man? That was in sixth grade. It was early sixth grade when she had met Anissa. I thought it was really weird and odd.

I was never into it. I just 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 this is a little too dark for my daughter? When I was Morgan's age, I was reading Stephen King novels. I remember being 11 years old and riding home from the library on my bike with it under my arm. And that's a very scary and dark story. So I just thought it was normal. As this is laying out this whole legal process. They're holding a competency hearing for Morgan Geyser. And during that hearing, it 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 years is extremely uncommon. It develops later in life. Are you surprised? No. 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 see it and you know it's not real. It totally doesn't matter because you're still terrified of it.

I know that there's... I know the devil's not in the back seat, but the devil is in the back seat. 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? It's difficult to say. She was always a quirky kid, but not pathologically so. I expected her to get put in prison or in a Spanish asylum. I didn't know what to expect. I don't think I've been saying that. Do you feel responsible? I think on some level, I'll always feel responsible for not knowing that my daughter wasn't well. Your job as 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 schizophrenia? At 12, it's very hard to identify psychosis crisis. 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 got treated, and she remained in a very acutely psychotic state. These fictional characters, Baltimore from the Harry Potter books, Spock from Star Trek, Thunder Man, 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 Brian's dad had schizophrenia. And for a long time, I thought that they were maybe just in denial and ignoring her symptoms. But they recognize 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, Ms. Geyser and Ms. Weer, 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? Introducing the new ESPN, Fox One bundle. Unlock all of ESPN and all of Fox One with one unbeatable price. Catch the biggest games, college football, NBA, NHL, and more on ESPN. Stream your faves. Big Noon Saturday, The World Series, and NASCAR on Fox One. All for just 39. 99 a month. That's 20% off. The ESPN, Fox One bundle. Offer valid for eligible subscribers only. Access content from each service separately. Savings compared to purchasing both plans separately. See stream. Espn. Com for complete terms and conditions. Nearly three years have passed since the so-called Slender Man stabbing attack on a Waukesha sixth grader by her two classmates.

In 2017, The first of these cases goes to trial. It's Anissa's case. The courthouse had areas roped off for the media. There were so many people there. We had to have security push the reporters away from us. By the time she shows up, she looks completely different. Seriously? 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 coverage. And then We hear that Anissa has played guilty and cut a deal. That means you participated in the effects. I understand. 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 Wired. It's basically both sides going for broke. 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 course, they saw just the opposite. The evidence will show that at the time this occurred, Anissa's broken mind caused her to lose touch with reality. Anissa'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 Anissa was mentally ill. I was hired specifically by the court to do an evaluation of Anissa. Did you find a diagnosed disorder for Anissa? Yes, I did diagnose her with a disorder. Anissa was diagnosed with shared psychotic disorder. There's an old French word, folie dou, 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 ill than she was and 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 is having some mental health problems, and then they have this shared interest. And you couple that with the fact that they're twelve years old and still retaining some of the magical thinking of childhood.

And it's this perfect storm. They believe they had to do it. I was really scared knowing that Slender could easily kill my whole family in three seconds. Essentially, it was protecting their family. They needed to kill somebody to prove themselves to Slender her man, and that their families would be safe. Prosecutors were saying she knew exactly what she was doing when they stabbed Payton and point to a very specific moment in the interrogation. The first The line that she tells me in my interview was saying, The silly thing about this was... I just know I wasn't in danger until after Morgan stabbed Payton. That statement is, to me, the most powerful statement in the whole case. 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 Payton. 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 twelve-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 until 10: 30 or 11: 00 PM.

The time had come. Anissa Wire sitting in that court rolling shaking. Has the jury reached the verdict? Yes, we have, Your Honor. She's about to hear what the punishment will be and where she'll be sent. Anissa Wire was found not guilty by a reason of mental disease or defect. In the end, the jury decides she should be committed to a state mental institution rather than go into prison. With that, I will order that she be committed to the Department of Health Services. A late night verdict in the Slender Man trial, the decision not to send Anissa Wire to prison. Their decision was humane, and the actions of a 12-year-old didn't deserve the harshest His 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 twelve at the time it happened, You've 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. Ms. Wider, 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 Boren committed Anissa for the maximum period of time. With that, then I committed Anissa Wired for a period of 25 years. After spending 25 years in a mental institution, my fear is that she will not really know how to interact with normal people go at Walmart, at the gas station, at Pick and Save. All of the focus now shifts to Morgan Geyser. And Morgan is the one who actually stabbed Payton. I'm sorry. I've never meant this to happen. Anissa Wire will be heading to a mental hospital rather than prison. So now you have one of girls, Anissa 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 was much more psychologically damaged.

What did you 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. Ms. Geyser, would you like to say anything? I just want to let Ella and her family know I'm sorry. It's never meant this to happen. What would you want to say to them? I'm so sorry for what Payton 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 to rebuild our lives, so it's still a little hard. The length of the commitment, I believe, is appropriate at 40 years, and that'll be the order of the court. 15-year-old Morgan guy her sentenced in Wisconsin today to 40 years in a mental institution. If Morgan had never met Anissa, 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 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? Mm-hmm. For Payton Leightner, 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 frightening were you still? I slept in my mom's bed for a while just because I didn't want to be alone. I still sleep with 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 will 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 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 Payton Leightner. It's pretty good. After Payton had gone back school, the man who would be made School Resource Officer would be Dan Klein. Up there is the 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, in a way, 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 Anissa again. Morgan Geyser, Anissa 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 pictured your daughter. No. 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, going to homecoming.

It's hard. One of the things I asked Angie, would they still be able to live in Waukesha? And she sat across from me and said, We're going to move. I frequently drive by these places that hold horrible memories, and I just want to get us all away from that. Every six 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'll be back in Waukesha County. I think Morgan could rejoin the community, if not immediately in the very near future. Waukesha is not a big city, and so if she was released, You know, you can honestly run into each other at the grocery store or 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 rise. But that's going to come back to Judge Boren again, and he can decide, You did this once. I'm not convinced. I don't think it takes 10 more years. And to 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 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 a danger to society? 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. And you have thought about her? Yeah, I've 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 it was her fault. She raised her wrong. It wasn't her fault. Morgan's schizophrenic. She's written a letter? She did write a letter to Payton, yes. Did 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 to say us how sorry I am. And I can promise you not a day will go by. Not a day 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 they're just words on a piece of paper. If she saw this interview, what would you want to say to her? 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 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. Stacey and Joe, they're 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 message do you hope that that sends?

A sense of unity We're really grateful for the opportunity 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 Stacey that did everything, and I'm truly thankful for that. There'll be people talking about this forever. There was just an 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 schizophrenia, probably this doesn't happen. One of the things I will never forget from this interview with Payton Leightner 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?

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 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, 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. Without the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am. Stronger. Mm-hmm. What happened to me has made me who I am, and I love it. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9: 00 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.