Slender Man stabbing victim breaks her silence five years after ‘friends’ stabbed her 19 times
Slender Man stabbing victim Payton Leutner has spoken out for the first time years after her former “friends” stabbed her in the woods.
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The Slender Man stabbing victim has spoken out for the first time to recall the shocking moment two so-called “friends” stabbed her and left her for dead five years ago.
Payton Leutner, now 17, has opened up about the horrifying attack to American journalist David Muir in an interview that will air in the US on Friday night (local time).
During the interview, Payton recalled being lured into a secluded, wooded area by her friends, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2014.
“They just wanted to go on a walk. And I didn’t think much of it, it’s just a walk. It’s in Waukesha, what bad stuff happens in Waukesha, Wisconsin?” Leutner recalled.
“Anissa told me to lie on the ground and cover myself in sticks and leaves and stuff to hide in a sense.
“But it was really just a trick.”
The two girls then stabbed Leutner 19 times and left her to die.
The teenager miraculously survived by crawling to a nearby road where she managed to get the attention of a passing cyclist.
The two teens were sent to psychiatric institutions where Geyser was sentenced to 40 years and Weier was sentenced to 25 years in custody.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide, but she argued she wasn’t responsible for her actions because she was mentally ill.
But while a jury agreed she was mentally ill, they maintained that Weier was just as responsible because she helped plan it and set the stage for the attack.
The two girls told police they carried out the attack because Slender Man, a fictional internet character, told them to.
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Weier said she thought he was going to kill her family otherwise.
In the interview, Leutner revealed that she and Anissa were never close. In fact she said she “didn’t like her at all” but put up with her because she and Morgan were such good friends.
“I didn’t like [Weier] at all,” she said.
“I just hung out with her because I knew that Morgan really loved her as a friend. But she was always cruel to me.
“I feel like she was jealous that Morgan was friends with me and her.”
Prior to the attack, the three girls had been having a slumber party, before Geyser and Weier lured Leutner “into the woods” and “went ballistic”.
Originally published as Slender Man stabbing victim breaks her silence five years after ‘friends’ stabbed her 19 times