Sonia Meza-Leon: Alrighty.
Hayes, Carlitos.
Hey, Scarlett fans.
We are back with episode eight of our podcast.
We are going to be talking tonight about the slender man stabbing
Brittney Sherman: you're of course, here with me, Brittany Sherman.
And I'm here with Sonia Misa Leone.
I'm excited for this one.
I am batting with a home field advantage here because this happened right
down the street from where I live.
And I didn't really start thinking about this until I was diving into
this conver or this topic, man.
Some shit happens in Wisconsin.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Oh yeah.
You guys have a, you're probably went second to Florida.
Maybe.
Yes.
Brittney Sherman: Yeah.
You're
Sonia Meza-Leon: still number one.
I think only because we're able to publish that.
That's I promise there's crazy everywhere, but Florida, since the laws that you,
any criminal, you know, mugshots, all of that's all public information and the
press loves it and goes crazy over it.
But of course, yes.
Weird things happen in Florida.
Yeah.
Well, so
Brittney Sherman: I was thinking about like how, I mean, I've got like a
bevy of topics for us to talk about at some point, but I was thinking.
Maybe five, six things that are like really close to where I was.
So they're within a mile, maybe a mile and a half of where I grew up.
And where at parents currently live, there were two mass shootings.
That one that was really highly publicized.
I think back in like 2012, maybe, um, there was the church that I grew up
going to when I was a child and the family that lived down the street from
the first house that I lived in, there was a mother who tragically drowned
her two sons and was a member of the same parish that we were, who was that?
No, no, no, no.
It wasn't Susan Smith.
She joined them in their bathtub.
I don't remember her name,
Sonia Meza-Leon: unfortunately.
Okay.
We'll cover that one later.
Brittney Sherman: Yeah, we'll definitely come to that.
Cause that was really tragic.
Like it actually drove the priest from our church to like need to retire and
relocate because it was too much for him.
He couldn't handle it.
Uh, there was there's of course, Jeffrey Dahmer for Milwaukee
right next to where I live.
Uh, and there was a, uh, kidnapping that happened.
I think it was like the same week as Elizabeth smart, but never received
the same kind of publicity except it was on wasn't unsolved mystery.
So it was that show that John Walsh used to host.
I can't remember what it's called now.
America's most wanted, I think it was featured on that.
Um, so that happened and that's deal a cold case that girl was never found.
And now of course here is slender man, which is in the same county
in next town, over from where.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Crazy.
So it gives us a little rundown on what's our, what's our summary of this.
So we can kind of let everybody know what to expect from this episode.
Also give fair warning when it comes to the severity of this crime
and you know, we're going to be sharing some graphic information.
Um, and we're going to be talking about, um, the victim as well as the, uh,
The defendants in the case, the actual perpetrators and they're all at the time
of the, um, crime were 12 years old.
So understand, we'll try to be sensitive to, uh, speaking about them because
they are children and certainly sensitive to all of their families,
um, because they're all, you know, going through their own challenges,
uh, when it comes to this case, it was a shock to everyone, certainly.
And as all.
Uh,
Brittney Sherman: we advise listener discretion advised
because we will be getting into, into some violent conversations.
And this is strictly our opinion and the evidence that is already out there.
We are not introducing anything new or stating anything as fact.
So a quick little summary on slender, man.
Uh, he is a fictional supernatural character.
That's really popular still among, uh, pre-teens and adolescents.
The crux of the story is that he is this thin featureless man between eight and
15 feet tall, and he stalks and, um, ducks and traumatizes, uh, children.
Uh, he was invented as part of, uh, just a fun little contest, but in
2014 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12 year old girls became consumed
by the lore of slender man.
And believe that the only way to be safe from him was to kill their friend Peyton,
or as they called her Bella Leitner.
This is their story.
Sonia Meza-Leon: so, uh, interesting case, you know, it's, um, I think what
I want to hear from you is a little bit of the background of the area.
This is your hometown.
It like it really is.
And it would be awesome.
I mean, I feel like this is fairly recent 2014, you know, the kids, I
think I could definitely understand.
12 year old was going through in 2014, because it would likely be similar
technology that we have today, maybe a little more improved, but they were
still serving the internet, you know, and there was likely the same information
out there, Facebook social media.
So these two were definitely influenced by, um, any, a lot of the online material
that they received about Slenderman.
I think that was their main source of information about him.
Yes.
So
Brittney Sherman: to paint a little bit of a picture of where we're talking about,
because I didn't know this area very well.
Uh, I grew up in a town that's right in the middle of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and
Waukesha, Wisconsin, and it's Waukesha county is the, the area that I grew up in.
And of course this is Waukesha, the city within Washoe county and.
E a significant hybrid of a metropolitan area and a woodsy
forest desolate rural area.
Waukesha is a pretty large swath of land that.
In one area, you are very close to the happenings, like the
downtown areas, shopping food.
You're only maybe a 10 minute drive from Milwaukee, but you're also only
a five minute drive from being pretty much completely cut off from society.
It's just, it's a lot of rural highways.
Uh, just a lot of open land houses that live.
Far apart from each other.
I don't know the specific area where these girls are from.
I kind of got the, uh, the opinion that they are from somewhere kind of on
that border of the, the city portion of it to the more country portion of it.
Yeah.
It looked like
Sonia Meza-Leon: a subdivision where this park was located.
Brittney Sherman: Yes, exactly.
So, um, to your point about how they kind of got consumed Slenderman is
mostly just, it's an online fiction.
There've been stories that have come out.
There've been a couple movies made, but really at the time, and it
originated on the website, creepy pasta as just a fun invention that
was meant to garner a little attention and win an award for some guide.
Create this new creepy story that could be used to freak out
kids and kind of become a new
Sonia Meza-Leon: bogeyman.
Do you think really the creep out kids, or do you think it was targeted
at a more adult audience and kids just became interested in it or
it was a really targeting kids?
Brittney Sherman: Well, okay.
So that's a really good question.
I'm not really sure what the original intent was, but when this person, uh,
Eric Knutson is his name, uh, submitted his story to the creepy pasta website.
He included with it two pictures.
One picture was of kids playing on a playground and slender man hanging out
in the trees behind kind of creeping around a tree and watching the kids I use
watching lightly because Slenderman as the story goes, has no facial features.
There is no eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
It's just a blur.
Canvas more or less.
And then he submitted another picture which had slender man chasing
after a bunch of kids crossing a
Sonia Meza-Leon: bridge.
Oh, got it.
So there was depictions of, of him visual depictions of him actually
chasing children and somewhere another, they got this because what I thought
was interesting about this case was that when the girls in question, um,
and we'll talk about them a little more detail when they started, um, becoming
interested in slender, man, they.
It was a little confusing on from, from my standpoint, because a lot of what they
talked about felt like that they were instructed by slender man, or that they
had gotten information that somehow again, as you said, um, you know, that they
went ahead with this plan to murder this little girl, I E Morgan's best friend.
And, um, because they needed to protect their own families from slender man.
Like their.
Did they get direct orders?
Did they just, was there an implication based on the information that was online?
Um, you know, I think all of those things that we'll definitely talk about as we
get a little bit further in the case, but let's start at the beginning, um, of this
case, which is in 2014, um, May 31st.
Um, so if we back it up a little bit, we've got, uh, two girls
Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weir.
So Morgan Geyser had known T uh, uh, Peyton Lautner
for quite a number of years.
Um, Lightner, Lightner.
Yes, like Christian later, later that's Christian later.
And this is lightener Peyton lightener liner.
Got it.
Um, So it sounds to be like Peyton liner and Morgan Geyser
had become friends when they were five, six years were really young.
They,
Brittney Sherman: I mean, at this point, I think they were 12 years
old, but more or less considered themselves be lifelong best
Sonia Meza-Leon: friends.
Right.
And from what I could see in the documentaries that I
watched, um, I took a look.
I became really interested in the Slenderman case when I started
watching beware of the slender man, the Amy HBO documentary.
And then I did a little more research, um, in watching the 20,
20 special that had a little more information, a little more precision
in the way that they approached it.
Um, but it both, you know, shared a lot of the same information.
I, this case is fairly simple in my opinion.
I mean, there's no doubt what happened.
There's no doubt who did it.
It's really just the.
Interest to finding out why.
And I think we even know why they did it, but there's still for me so much
to talk about in the why, because, um, you know, this is well documented.
There's a lot of video footage of them being interrogated and just
the reactions of the girls and the things that they said and the way that
they said them, their demeanors, as they conveyed this message of what
they actually did and their intense.
It was, they were delivering this message.
It was so flat, you know, they were just, as a matter of fact, you know,
like they were explaining something happening to someone else, not
themselves, which was really interesting.
And I completely understand and appreciate that these are 12 year
old girls, very impressionable.
Um, but I think it's interesting to look at those interrogations, if you are
interested in that kind of thing, because there's definitely a difference in the
turn interrogations of Anissa and Morgan Geyser and how they convey that message.
There are a lot of similarities, similarities as well, but the
differences are what I find interesting.
And I feel like that gives me a little more insight into the
motivations of both of these.
Brittney Sherman: So talking about the event itself, like you said,
it's really straight forward.
There's nothing up for debate, both girls and Peyton and the
authorities all shared the same story that everyone's on the same page.
So I think really what we're ultimately going to get to is a conversation about
the motivations and the aftermath.
But before we do that, we're going to run you through a little bit
of the actual details of the case.
So on May 30th, 2014, Uh, Peyton was invited to a sleepover at Morgan's house.
It was to celebrate Morgan's birthday and Peyton, uh, Nissa
and Morgan went to skate land,
Sonia Meza-Leon: which sounds so fun.
And by the way, I have a note here Skateland in 2014, question mark,
because is that actually a thing in 2014 skating, but I thought that that
was all gone after rollerblading.
Brittney Sherman: I mean, definitely in 2014.
I don't know if it's still there.
I spent many a Friday night at skate land and, uh, many, uh, not good memories.
I'll be on
Sonia Meza-Leon: high.
Okay.
Brittney Sherman: It's a picture of me on skates.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Okay.
Well you are a
Brittney Sherman: little clumsy now.
Picture me on skates in middle school with middle
Sonia Meza-Leon: school kids.
Brittney Sherman: Uh, not at the time.
Sonia Meza-Leon: No.
Okay.
Well, okay.
At least you have that going for you, but where you before braces
or after it was before braces.
Oh, good Lord.
So you needed braces, so all of this working against you?
Oh, well, yeah.
So a month later on skates, it
Brittney Sherman: brings back some tough memories.
Sonia Meza-Leon: I have tough memories of skating too, but only because I
would just stand around the corner and wait for somebody to ask me to skate.
I would like dance with my girlfriends.
It was terrible.
I mean, it was kind of pathetic.
And then we would have sock hops at the skating rink, which was really cool.
Sock hops.
Well, yeah, sock hops.
Um, essentially what they did, it was fan freaking tastic when you're a
teenage girl, because you get locked into this place all night and they
don't let you out until the morning with a bunch of boys that you're, you
know, of course who has sock hops.
It, it was great.
I don't know why that they, well, you know why, because they didn't
want people wearing shoes on the floor, but you didn't skate.
You actually took off your shoes and just had socks on and danced on them.
That actually does sound kind of fun.
Yeah, it was because they locked you in.
I mean, I remember going to some walk-ins, those were fun.
Fantastic.
What a great like, oh, I know.
Okay.
So skate land, sorry.
We digress.
We're going to try to move this along because I know that some of our episodes,
um, sometimes bleed into two episodes, this case I'm, we're hoping, I don't
think there's enough information to talk about, but again, All week, Brittany
and I have been looking at this, I'm thinking by this case and talking
about this case and in passing and every time we start to talk about it, a
little we're like, no, no, no, no, no.
Let's hold off because we really want to record this because I do
have a lot of opinions about this.
Brittney Sherman: I do too.
So all right, we'll get back to it.
So they went to skate land to celebrate Morgan's birthday.
Uh, went home.
Your original plan was for Morgan and Anissa to wake up at 2:00
AM and stab Payton to death in the basement of Morgan's home.
But both girls overslept.
And when they did wake up, they decided that they didn't want to
do it then because they didn't want to make a mess in the family home.
And they thought that Peyton would probably scream and wake up the parents.
So they decided to put off the attack at least temporarily.
Sonia Meza-Leon: That's crazy.
Super crazy.
It's so calculated for.
12 year old girls and I get it that they, their motivation was, um,
this fantasy and that they had.
But, you know, I, I'm not sure I thought any plan through
that thoroughly when I was
Brittney Sherman: no, you're you're right, but the become very conflicted.
So they, they sleep through the night.
W uh, I'll jump backwards a little bit later about some of the motivations on
how they get there, but want to just focus on the events as they happen right now.
So it gets through the night, wake up on the morning of May 31st have breakfast,
a fun sleepover for the three girls and Morgan asked permission from her mom.
If the three girls can get.
Play at the park down the street.
So this is a park.
That is, it has a playground, but it's also next to a wooded area.
And as I think I mentioned at the beginning, there's a lot
of that in Waukesha county, city of Oxford, particularly.
So that's not uncommon at all.
It's a lot of fun for kids to go in the woods to play creepy games
with each other and play like light flashlight tag and at night.
So this is super common.
The girls go to the park and on their way out, Morgan sneakily grabs
a kitchen knife and puts it in her
Sonia Meza-Leon: pants.
So this is the morning of the 31st of.
And so, um, I will note because I, you know, I'm sure in 2014 things are a little
more locked down than when I was young.
And, um, I wondered, you know, is it normal for these kids to go to the park?
You know, how close is it?
And from what I understand from an interview with Morgan Geyser's
mother, she said that normally Morgan actually would not be allowed
to go to the park by herself.
And the only reason that she let them go was because they were together.
That was interesting.
So, uh, you know, in the interviews that Morgan's meet with Morgan's mom, she
also says that she had no indication the kids, the girls were at her.
The night before everything was normal, even though they apparently were
planning on killing their friend in the basement and holding off on that.
And then, you know, even the next morning she said things were absolutely
as they were, um, nothing, no.
Cause for alarm, she didn't have any indication that they were planning this.
So it just sort of speaks to what what's normal and, um, you know,
how do you make an assessment, you know, so close to that event.
Brittney Sherman: So the girls get to the park and they play on
the playground for a little while.
And then.
Uh, Nisa and Morgan start to flush out exactly what they're going to do.
So at this point, Morgan has the knife and she started to get cold feet.
She doesn't want to do it.
So she says to a Nissa, I can't do it.
And our Nissa says we have to do it.
So Annisa takes a knife and talks Peyton into going to, into the public bathroom.
Because if Peyton is obviously going to bleed, the blood will drain down into
the sewers and not leave much evidence.
So the three girls go into the bathroom and pain is cornered
in the side of the bathroom.
And she, this is the first time she started to wonder,
this seems a little weird.
I don't know what's going on here, Morgan.
And, uh, Nisa tried to convince Peyton to lay down on the ground.
She doesn't, which is great for so many reasons, because the grounds of
public park bathrooms are disgusting,
Sonia Meza-Leon: kind of like a port-a-potty
Brittney Sherman: yeah.
More or less.
So a Nissa then grabs Peyton and hits her head against the wall
to try and knock her unconscious.
At this
point,
Sonia Meza-Leon: this is a concrete bathroom, by the way, just so everybody's
clear, it's usually like, you know, concrete block, you know, with, uh,
sort of some sort of open, you know, they're, they're not fancy and likely
they aren't completely enclosed either.
Yeah.
The doors
Brittney Sherman: probably it's doorway.
It's probably not a door.
Right.
But at this point he felt your Peyton, how do you continue to go along with this?
She has her head hit against the wall.
She doesn't fall unconscious.
And so now she's getting more concerned, but instead of saying,
I want to go, she continues to play with the girls after they leave
Sonia Meza-Leon: the bathroom.
I'm not surprised because she, you know, if everybody's accurate in
their assessment, that nobody could have, nobody saw any saw any of this
coming Peyton, you know, was probably feeling a little peer pressure.
And, um, you know, she and Morgan were best friends and Lisa was the
new, you know, friend to this group.
And I'm sure there was some, you know, maybe I'd say a little bit of jealousy
or maybe, you know, it's true that threes twos company, three's a crowd and.
Obviously well-known after this, this happened that Anissa and Morgan
had been spending a lot of time together because they would have been
plotting this actually for six months.
So this was an ongoing plan that they had it wasn't, uh, you
know, it didn't happen overnight.
They thought about it and they thought about it a lot.
So if that's the case, then they didn't share any of that with Peyton, but she
was supposed to be Morgan's best friend.
So that's really hard to imagine how she would keep something
like that from her best friend.
So,
Brittney Sherman: well that for a second, because you hit on something amazingly
accurate two's company, three's a crowd, despite what the show will tell us.
Yeah.
Uh, Nisa, uh, Nisa was new to Waukesha and new to the school.
So this was the end of her first full year.
Now I'm making some judgements here, but Anissa to me comes across as an
awkward kind of girl, not one that fits in with the popular crowd.
She's new.
She probably didn't have a lot of friends and she.
Clung to Morgan early on, as he said, it was about six months, they had been, had
been friends and hanging out and a Nisa is actually the one that introduced Morgan
to slender man, because a Nissa was a follower of slender man, before she moved.
And she talked to Morgan about how this is true.
It's a lore.
He's real.
It's a, if we don't follow him, bad, things are gonna happen to us on our
friends and family and Morgan fell so deeply into that belief that she actually
claimed that she remembers seeing a slender man when she was five years old
and now completely became onboard with a Nissa and the belief that they had
to take action for them to become safe.
Additionally, to that, they believe that once they took that action and
Peyton was dead, they would become proxies for slender man, and be able
to live in his castle in Nicola.
Uh, is it state park, national park, Nicola national park in Wisconsin.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So I can, they both believe this.
They both believe this.
So let's put a pin in this moment right here, because this is something
I'm going to bring up later because I, I know that this the entire
defense is based on the fact that these girls believed in the slender
man character, or they say they did.
And that, um, you know, this was driving them.
They didn't have a choice.
They were saving their family.
Um, because there are some things that are said in the interrogations that
lead me to believe otherwise, or at least question the black and white
of if they really believed it or not.
So pin in that keep going.
Brittney Sherman: I still got the impression that even though Peyton
and Morgan were best friends, I kind of felt that maybe Morgan.
Slipping off to the sides.
And Peyton was kind of maybe merging in a little bit more with the popular
crowd and starting to develop new friends as you usually do when you move
from elementary into middle school.
And I got the opinion that, or the impression, I guess I should say that
Morgan was becoming more of a loner herself and that's where she and her
Nissa gravitated towards each other because they saw each other as two loners
independent work with the cool kids.
Well, Peyton was gradually moving towards the cool kids and that's why
they really found a bond with each other.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Do you think that's why they found the need to, was this, I mean,
the sad part about it, you know, is that we had a victim in this case, Peyton
Lautner, Lightner, Lightner, uh, who, you know, didn't do, didn't do anything wrong.
Certainly didn't do anything to deserve this.
And, um, you know, it's just so strange that they would happenstance to choose
the person that they were close to.
I'm I'm just surprised that they wouldn't choose someone
to murder who they didn't know.
I
Brittney Sherman: crushing that exact same thing also.
Uh, but I actually took it as they felt like they had to make a sacrifice.
And you needed to sacrifice someone that was important to
you to pledge your allegiance.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Just I'm thinking that they were really, they, she
was really important to them.
Brittney Sherman: I think that Peyton was still important to a more.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Okay,
Brittney Sherman: fair enough.
I think that they were drifting apart, but they were still hanging on to
that friendship that they've had for what they considered their entire
Sonia Meza-Leon: life.
Sure.
Got it.
And that does happen.
That's a natural progression when you've got from elementary school
to junior high, to high school and schools merge and you lose contact.
And, um, you know, it happened to me, it happens to most people,
so I'm not surprised, but this is one of those pivotal moments.
Um, especially for someone who may have, um, some mental issues to deal
with, you know, it's, it is a traumatic event when you change schools and when
you, you know, your friends come and go for someone who may not be, um, you
know, a sound mind, this is something that could cause you know, a break.
So all of these things, I think we're culminating.
Plus you've got 12 year old girls who.
Their hormones kicking in, you know, things aren't there, no teenage girl
thinks straight and to have this kind of thing, um, we brought into the
conversation and to be thinking about this and to get obsessed with it, as you
would typically, you know, with, uh, you know, someone of the opposite sex or,
or not, you know, even, um, but usually you've got a lot of things happening in
your body and your mind that you don't understand and why they're happening.
Brittney Sherman: All right.
We're going to jump back to the events of May 31st.
So after the girls leave the bathroom, they decide that they are going to
play hide and seek in the woods.
And like I said, the woods are like the best place to do that.
It's so much fun.
So Peyton going along with it thinking everything's okay.
Even though she just had her head hate against the wall of the bathroom, decides
to go along with playing hide and seek.
So the girls get together.
They say that they're going to, uh, I think, uh, Nisa was supposed
to be the one to like count and the other girls are going to hide.
And as they're walking up there.
And Anissa tells Morgan.
I tried to knock her out.
I couldn't do it.
I can't stab her.
Now.
Remember it.
Nisa has the knife.
It was transferred from Morgan to a Nissa, uh, Nissa pretty much just saying
I can't do it while she's conscious.
So we failed.
We got to move on and Morgan says, well, give me the knife.
I'll do it.
But you have to be the one to tell me when to go.
So they transfer the knife again.
They asked Peyton to lie on the ground.
Again, she won't do it.
So a Nissa pretends like she's going off to count.
So the other girls can go hide.
And she then screams when she's about five feet away.
Do it now go ballistic and Morgan tackles, Peyton and steps her 19 times.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Hmm.
Wow.
And so Morgan sitting on top of her doing
Brittney Sherman: yes, she is straddling her around her legs.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Wow.
So it sounds like we've got 19 wounds.
Uh, two wounds missed major organs, one Mr.
Hart, by less than a millimeter and another one through her
diaphragm, diaphragm cutting into our liver and her stomach.
So that was why she was having issues breathing.
And Peyton would
Brittney Sherman: say that she didn't even feel the pain when this was happening.
She was in such shock as to what was happening.
It didn't even hurt.
She was just so, so surprised that her best friend was doing this to her and her
body went into its own form of protection.
After Morgan finished, and Peyton was still conscious.
Anisa told Peyton don't move and lay flat because you will bleed less that.
The girl, the two girls, uh, then take off and leave the
Sonia Meza-Leon: park.
Well, important thing to remember.
Yeah.
They told Peyton that they were going for help.
Oh, that's right.
I forgot about that part of that.
They were going for help.
So, and I'm not sure why they would tell her that other than to keep her there
so she wouldn't get help for herself.
And because they're really, the intention was to kill her.
Yes, this wasn't, the intention was not to hurt her.
It was to kill her, to take her life.
So
Brittney Sherman: the girls leave the park with no intention to get help.
And Peyton in an incredibly brave act says, screw this.
They just tried to kill me.
I don't think they're going to get help gets up and stumbles to a roadway,
uh, at the edge of the park where a bicyclist pulls over and sees her, uh,
and then immediately calls for help.
Hmm,
Sonia Meza-Leon: which is surprising to the police, of course, because I think
that even though weird things seem to happen in Wisconsin, whenever someone
calls 9 1, 1, everybody's surprised how could it happen in, uh, in Wisconsin
or Wickersham, Waukesha, Waukesha, even Peyton said that, you know, Hey, I
thought it was fine going to the park.
I thought nothing would happen.
What's going to happen and walk a shop,
Brittney Sherman: small town, false sense of security, because
nothing bad ever happens here.
And watch us not your classic small town that you usually hear these stories about.
It's a decent size, but it's in an, a, this was in an area
where these things don't happen.
And it's still not an area that has a high, violent crime rate by any means.
So I, I get it, but it's also very much, I kind of feel like when I hear stories of
people breaking into homes and violating families, Uh, a big reason that happens
is because the front door was left unlocked or the windows are left open.
So well, there's no justification for that.
It's providing an opening cause there's this false sense of security.
And I think that's kind of what happened here, plus the fact
of their 12 year old girls.
So aren't thinking about the bad things that could possibly have.
Sonia Meza-Leon: I don't know if they ever were that's what's um, you know, the
interesting part of the case, as we'll see a little bit later in the trial and the
way the defense is going to, um, you know, their angle on this case, um, because
a lot of it is, you know, conveying to, you know, the judge that, you know,
were these girls because they were 12 year old responsible for their actions.
Um, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
So the girls run off, no intention of coming back, they leave they're bleeding.
Friend laying on the ground.
They don't think that she's going to get up.
They think she's probably going to lay there and die.
They are picked up what, five hours later, walking down the highway.
I don't even,
Brittney Sherman: it might've been, uh, but it wasn't that far.
It was, they were picked up along I, 94 only, I think it was like a mile
and a half or so from the crime scene, because the originally planned to
go back to Morgan's house to collect their goods, throw it in a backpack
and then walk up to Nicola national park, which is 200 miles away.
Right.
So it's not a quick little John's these girls clearly had no idea how far it was.
So even though it was five hours, they weren't very far from where it happened.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Got it.
Wow.
That's crazy.
Well, I mean, you have to, if you're planning to walk 200
miles, I mean, that would take days and days and days and days.
Brittney Sherman: I think they had any idea that it was actually 200 miles.
Wow.
And by the way, I don't going through 94.
Isn't going to get you to make a way
Sonia Meza-Leon: we'll also, where is the end game for them?
Because there is no mansion, so of whatever they're walking to,
and they're not even going to find any way they could walk all the
way through this national park.
It
Brittney Sherman: wouldn't matter exactly.
But to them, their end game was to get to this mansion to live with slender, man.
They didn't know because they were so steadfast in their belief.
This is real
Sonia Meza-Leon: right.
Exactly.
So they get girls get picked up, they get brought into the station.
They both have blood on them.
Um, not as much as I would have thought.
And my guess is a lot of this is because even when the bicyclist fines,
um, Peyton and the 9 1, 1 operator asked, you know, is there blood on her?
And they, the guy.
Sort of, you know, like, well, there's blood on her clothes.
It didn't sound to me like ne um, Morgan had really stabbed her.
I'm sure she stabbed her with 19 stabs.
I'm sure some of them were deeper than others, but, um, you know, it didn't
sound like she was bleeding profusely.
She wasn't covered.
Brittney Sherman: That's exactly how I took it.
And one of the detectives who met the ambulance at the hospital essentially
reported it as it was a girl who clearly was in a lot of pain, but was alert and
in better condition than she expected.
Peyton immediately went into emergency surgery.
And the most dangerous stab wound was a millimeter from a key artery
that had that been nixed would have caused her to have a heart attack.
So she was very fortunate that she survived and, uh, while she was in
surgery, of course the girls were picked up and the formal investigation.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So you will probably find an, I suggest you take a look at it.
There's a lot of video.
Um, they interviewed or interrogated these two girls as is legal in Wisconsin.
Um, if you're, I think over the age of 10 or something like that.
Yeah.
You're allowed to interview children without their parents in the room.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Brittney Sherman: It is crazy.
And that makes me rethink about the whole Brendan Dassey situation.
Did that happen to Wisconsin?
That was another, that's another one from Wisconsin.
That was from Manitowoc.
Uh, but I didn't even think about that.
Um, yeah, so I didn't realize that that was legal.
I don't understand how
Sonia Meza-Leon: that's legal.
Well, that was one of the, well, the Brendan Dassey case, I think
that was one of their appeals.
They base their appeal on him being interviewed without his parents.
Exactly what that law would have been effective then are they.
You wouldn't have had that appeal even occurring.
So it must've been a little different at some, maybe that was a while back.
Brittney Sherman: Yeah.
I mean, yeah, maybe.
I mean, that was like 2005 or maybe the reason his appeal was unsuccessful was
because of that, but regardless that's
Sonia Meza-Leon: okay.
Yep.
So I, um, I spent a bit of time watching the interrogations.
I thought they were really interesting and.
From the point of view, uh, the psychological point of view, I think
whenever you're looking at child development and the way that the brain
works and what you can expect from a twelve-year-old, um, varies greatly.
I did note a couple of things that I thought were really interesting that were
said, um, that I'm going to read to you.
And I saw, again, these are the interrogations.
They actually, you know, shot video of these.
So it's clear that the girls are speaking, the words are coming out of their mouth.
And, um, they're also, you, you can see how they're conveying this message.
Uh, the first one I'm going to read is something that I thought
really was very interesting.
Um, and these are from, this is from Morgan.
Uh, the police officer asked Morgan, did you feel bad that you stabbed one of
your best friends and Morgan's response, um, was, and just to be clear, these two
girls and the way that they communicated this information to me, Very strange.
And there were times when they were upset about what they were
saying, but they weren't upset about, well, let me rephrase that.
They were upset about things that were, may have happened around the, the case
or the crime, but not the crime itself.
And, you know, she, Nisa was upset that her parents were scared,
but nobody was scared or nobody was worried about this girl.
Um, so when Morgan was asked that question, did you feel bad that you
stabbed one of your best friends?
That her answer was?
I thought about it, but then I thought remorse would get me nowhere.
It's easier to live without regret.
Now, if you don't know that these girls have some mental issues, this is when you
start really, really hating these grills.
It almost seems like they're evil, you know, and of course we realize later
that they've got some mental defects and that's part of their defense.
But when you watch a 12 year old girl say something like that, and
it comes out of her mouth, obviously something's wrong, but there's still
a shock to hearing it and seeing someone deliver that kind of message.
Um, she really did not care.
Brittney Sherman: And I really felt, and I didn't watch, I watched the interrogations
before I knew about what happened at the end of the trial and their sentencing.
So watching Morgan, I felt like I was watching evil incarnate.
This is Damien.
This is someone who has no remorse and.
Really there's no hope for it was scary
Sonia Meza-Leon: watching her.
Yeah, definitely.
And that's what really affected me the most.
And there are moments in some of the interviews with Morgan's
mother, where she tells a story of taking Morgan to the movies.
And this is when she realized that Morgan didn't have the ability to have remorse.
Um, they took her to see Bambi and when the mom dies, you know, sorry
to blow it for anybody, he goes, see Bambi, but boiler, the mother dies.
Uh, she, she, she felt nothing.
You know, she's there told her mom get out of there and why
is he still standing there?
He should be running.
You know?
So that was just, you know, again, the mom's first indication that there was
something not quite right about with her ability to be able to, um, You know,
and have empathy as a normal child.
And this was when she was probably
Brittney Sherman: five, probably so, and I think there was a, really a dichotomy
between the two interrogations of Morgan and Annisa Morgan came across.
Uh, well, she was cold.
I think she came across as still emotive.
And at one point getting very angry and frustrated because the
detective kept asking her the same questions over and over.
And her response became, I already told you, what else do you want me to say?
And he said, I need you to make sure our, I need to make sure that
I'm getting all the information.
Right.
Well, nothing has changed.
I already told you.
And she also started to Pintu.
Pin some of the blame onto a Nissa and essentially say
that this was a niece's idea.
Had a Nissa did not been around.
She probably wouldn't have done this now in the other interrogation
room, uh, Nisa showed no emotion.
She was totally flat.
Sonia Meza-Leon: She showed a motion motion once when her, they, when she
said, you know, how are my parents?
And then she was, she was worried about them.
And then what are they scared?
And then she started to cry, you know?
Yes.
Lisa was the toughest one for me.
Um, but I'm gonna read one more for Morgan.
Okay.
Go for it.
I thought that I've got one for my niece.
I thought it was really kooky.
So Morgan, again, then asked the police officer, is she dead?
And she's referring to Peyton, which they also called Bella.
Uh, the police officer's response was, I don't know, she was
taken to the hospital and then.
Morgan.
I watched this interrogation.
It's the most fascinating piece of it's a flash.
It's not that many frames, but when he says, I don't know,
she was taken to the hospital.
Morgan is leaning her chin and she's kind of sitting backwards on a chair.
And when he responds and says that she almost does a double-take
like, she kind of goes, whoa, you know, she didn't catch that.
Yeah.
You have to take a look at it.
I'm going to spawn surprise.
She's like, huh?
Yeah.
What?
And then she says, huh?
I was just wondering.
Yup.
And it's kinda like she said, I was just wondering so weird.
I have a niece who's seven or eight and highly intelligent and sometimes.
I can't grasp why she says things, but she says things that are very adult that
I'm like, wow, you know, it's crazy not comparing my knees to this at all, but,
um, it's shocking to hear a person who at a young age respond in a way like
this and then dismiss her own reaction.
Like she's trying to cover up or trying to, you know, nevermind.
I wasn't really serious.
Or, you know, I was just wondering it's so, you know, again, when you
realize that she's got some real mental issues, it doesn't dismiss this, the
impression that you get that she's calculated in a way that is shocking.
And I think that's what you mean when you're like evil in Carney, right?
Because you've got a person who appears to have a Berry good.
They feel, they appear.
Board almost doesn't appear like she's taking this seriously at all.
And then getting frustrated with the interrogators because of the police
officers, like they're bothering her, like they're wasting her time.
It's so strange.
And in the interview with Morgan's mother, she says herself, that's not my daughter.
She doesn't talk like that.
And, and even that was really strange.
Um, so, you know, Let's take a look at the video.
It's a split second that it happens, but she's sitting there.
She hears his response.
She like looks over at him startled and she's like, okay.
I was just wondering, um, almost like trying to come in and throw him
off the, off the trail of Irv her response, because you can clearly
see it in the video, but it's quick.
Okay.
I'll have to, I'll have to rewatch it to look at it.
Brittney Sherman: So then in the other room where Annisa is being
interrogated, uh, at one point she says the detective, can I ask you a question?
And the detective said, and it's really quite obvious on her face.
The question she's expecting to hear, which is, is Peyton.
Okay?
Is Peyton alive?
Did she die?
Instead of Nisa says, how far did I walk?
Because I'm not very athletic.
So I'm just wondering.
The detective is totally taken out of the moment.
Like, why do you care about this?
And
Sonia Meza-Leon: it just shows you what she doesn't care about.
I think that's the reality of it.
And that's, I think the downfall of an ISA, because, and I don't know what
her diagnosis was, you know, both of these folks, you know, had some issues,
but, um, you know, I think it, to me, it felt more like Morgan had some
more severe issues than an ISA did.
Yes, definitely.
Brittney Sherman: Well, we'll talk about their diagnosis diagnoses shortly.
Uh, the one thing that I found to be the most striking difference between
Morgan and Anissa is that Anessa was willing to accept full responsibility.
She would say, yes, I did this.
I am guilty of doing it.
I have no problem saying it.
Yeah.
Morgan did it too.
It was me and Morgan was trying to shift a lot of blame off of her.
And she was very defensive and trying to pin more of it onto a Nissa.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Hm.
Well, I mean, in some ways Morgan's right, because none of it would've
happened if it wasn't for Nissa, but at the end of the day, I think everyone
agrees that Morgan actually stabbed her.
So there's no way around it.
I do find it really strange that to me, when they say a Nissa
says, you know, go crazy, go ballistic or go bezerk or whatever.
She said, that sounds like something someone would say out of frustration,
like, just get it over already.
Like I'm tired of this, you know, I don't want to do it, just do it over it.
Like guts go, you know, that's what I felt like that that really meant.
And not that she was like ordering her to do something.
It was just like, just fricking do, just get it over with
just tired of waiting around.
Yeah.
We've been planning this for six months.
It's just go.
I have one more thing that, yeah, I want to mention that ENISA
says, and I, this is where I get a little caught up in motivation.
Um, and the, the angle that they were driven by this fantasy of slender, man,
obviously everyone who's looking at this case thinks of these, both of these
girls really believe that the slender man character was going to hurt them.
And that's why they decided to hurt Peyton.
But one of the things that Annisa said that threw me off in, in this,
when speaking about funds spent slender, man, um, you know, the police
officer asked her, you know, what is slender man, who was slender, man.
And Aneesa's response was there's this website, creepy pasta Wiki,
it's full of like horror stories that are meant to purposely scare you.
So she
Brittney Sherman: knew.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So this is where like, kind of I'm like, Hmm.
Well, if you're describing what Slenderman is, and you're saying to
the police officer that the basis of this website and this information
is to actually purposely scare you.
I feel like in saying that she had some understanding that it wasn't real,
Brittney Sherman: I would agree.
Uh,
Sonia Meza-Leon: okay.
So we're going to
Brittney Sherman: quickly, I'm going to quickly gloss over
what ultimately happened next.
So the girls are sentenced to, or excuse me, not sentence are
placed into a hold a prison hold for almost two and a half years.
And Morgan's mom would describe it as almost solitary confinement.
They were allowed to have visitors, but they only had one hour of
outside daylight time a week.
So the girls really were in pretty terrible circumstances and quarters
while they were waiting to go to court.
So they finally went to court in, uh, early 2017, or was
it some early 17 or late 16?
Sonia Meza-Leon: They were in jail or in holding for three years.
And that would have been
Brittney Sherman: 17.
So they go to court, uh, Nisa was the first one to go and she,
uh, right openly said guilty.
She admitted her guilt and pleaded guilty right away.
Now most of the time that's an open and shut case and it goes immediately
to the sentencing portion of it.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Now there's something in between here that happens.
Okay.
Go for it.
There's a decision to try these two girls as adults.
That's key.
This is really important.
And this was the most devastating blow to the defense.
When the judge said, no, we're going to try them as.
And I have to say, I agree with his decision because the thought of these
girls spending, if this was 2017, that would've made them 16, 7, 15, 15.
So that means in three years when they were 18, they would have gotten out.
So if they were treated as juveniles now, and the parents of course were adamant
that this is the right thing to do.
And, you know, there were children and you shouldn't held them
accountable for their actions.
And this is where I slightly, it slightly agree.
And I see the point of view of Peyton's parents.
And I think that this is probably the most important part and why the judge
said number one, that they were going to be tried as adults, because certainly
that he didn't want them out at 18 years of age, because I don't think that he
thought that they were ready for that.
I don't think that they would be much better by 18 and most important.
And I think this is where I really appeal to the victim's side of this cases.
Would Taylor have been safe if those two got out when they were
18, would Taylor have been safe?
I don't think so.
This gets into, or if I was Taylor, I'd say I'm not going to be saying.
Yeah.
Brittney Sherman: Oh, certainly.
I think, uh, I would believe that, uh, Taylor, Peyton,
Sonia Meza-Leon: Peyton, sorry.
Brittney Sherman: You know what?
I kept doing that too.
I kept on, I dunno why I kept on thinking it was Taylor.
Uh, so yeah, I would believe that Peyton would not feel that she would be safe.
I want to have an honest conversation about mental health once we finish
getting through the details.
Okay.
So they are, uh, tried in adult.
Anisa pleased guilty.
Instead of going immediately to the sentencing phase, the court
orders her to me evaluated by two psychologists, and then she has
her own psychologist evaluate her.
And the findings of all three psychologists is that a Nissa
suffers from a very rare condition and probably going to butcher this.
But I pride myself on getting medical terms, right.
Yeah, you do gets Octa piece gets outta B.
I don't know how to skitzo to feed thoughts or, or showing schizotypal
I know that's pronounced right.
Schizotypal behavior,
Sonia Meza-Leon: right?
Friends, fans out there.
Look it up.
How to pronounce Scrabble word for me,
Brittney Sherman: but essentially what that, it's a, it's a theoretical diagnosis
and it's a spectrum that essentially has all sorts of things that kind of feed
into it that can lead to that diagnosis.
And one of the things is a delusion and it was very clear to the psychologist
that despite what we just talked about, uh, Nisa was delusional and
believed Slenderman to be true.
And the threats that she concocted in her head to be true.
Also one of the things that are on this schizotypal spectrum is almost like a
transference of a mental health condition from one person to the other while
you're spending so much time with them.
What?
Yes, I know I had never heard of that RACI.
Do you
Sonia Meza-Leon: mean you can catch a mental
Brittney Sherman: condition?
That's what the argument and that's kind of what I understand this diagnosis to be
Sonia Meza-Leon: boy, this really changes.
Where I'm, you know, my future employment, I'll be a lot more careful.
Holy cow.
We're at risk.
Brittney Sherman: So ultimately she is found not guilty by a mental defect
or mental disease or defect as opposed to guilty of second degree murder as
she originally pleaded guilty to and
Sonia Meza-Leon: considered second degree attempted murder.
Brittney Sherman: I'm sorry.
Yes.
And considering that she was not the one to carry out the act, the maximum sentence
that she could be, it could be handed down to her was 25 years in treatment in
a psychological or psychiatric hospital.
No, Morgan becomes a little more complicated because Morgan has family
lineage, particularly her father.
And I'm not sure if it's before that.
Of schizophrenia and schizophrenia can be, uh, handed or passed down
so much so that her mother said that they were never sure about having kids
and they weren't ready for Morgan.
When she got pregnant schizophrenia typically presents itself in people in
their upper twenties, early thirties.
So later on in life, it
Sonia Meza-Leon: goes on through the rest
Brittney Sherman: of their life and then goes on through the rest
of their life to varying degrees.
And schizophrenia is also something that is on a spectrum.
Some people, uh, the most common, what you hear is that people will
say that they hear voices and people telling them to do things.
The example that Morgan's father used is he was cognitively aware
that the things that he felt were happening weren't happening, but
he couldn't do anything about it.
Right?
Like he would, he used the description of, he would be drawing.
And feel that a ghost was behind him in the car.
Now his cognitive brain knew there was no ghost and it wasn't
a threat, but the disease still convinced him there's a ghost.
So ultimately the disease would win those battles between the cognitive
brain and the diseased brain.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So this is something that since I don't have schizophrenia,
I have a really hard time, you know, understanding, um, I understand
how it works, but the feeling of it, it's hard for me to connect to.
I don't know if I've ever felt that sensation.
Um, where, I mean, God, I don't know.
I don't know if I've ever felt that sensation.
In my life.
So it's hard for me to understand that, but I appreciate that there
are things about the human brain that drives people to think certain things
or works against itself, per se.
And, um, that's the piece of this that I thought was really, um,
I mean, I, I have to be honest, I think this case is really sad.
It's sad for a lot of reasons.
It's sad because you've got 12 year old girls who have some mental issues.
A lot of people will say, Hey, you know, they shouldn't have
been looking at the internet.
It was the internet, it was the internet.
I don't think so.
Um, I think that there are things about the internet that definitely need to be
monitored, especially with young children.
But, um, I don't think the internet causes problem.
The other thing that I think is interesting about this is that.
And sad, really sad when you watch the beware of Slenderman documentary,
the HBO documentary, which I thought was a really great, um, as it, in
the way that it told the story.
And even this, the filmmaker says, you know, this isn't a, who done it,
this isn't about who did it, or how, or why it's all black and white.
It's about the psychology of this and trying to understand how children
develop and how to help these situations.
And is there anything we can do to avoid it in the future?
Um, but it really broke my heart when I was watching that documentary.
And I saw the reaction of Morgan's dad who is on camera and.
You know, this poor guy, tiering, if he's got schizophrenia himself, I'm sure
this event in and of itself probably caused some kind of break for him.
You know, it was probably hard.
It was dramatic, dramatic, traumatic, um, you know, and immediately
he started blaming himself when he was talking about this.
Um, he was crying.
It was so, so, so sad.
His heart was broken and this was a, the broken heart of a man
who has his own mental issues.
So that breaking heart is different than you and I, that understands
how to control this kind of thing.
Um, and it was really, really sad.
I, I felt for everybody involved, you know, I also felt for a niece's parents.
You know, the dad was trying so hard to keep it together.
The mom was there.
Um, you know, they have a son, they were trying to keep things normal,
but they've got a 12 year old in juvenile detention or in juvenile
jail for year over year, over year.
And these people have to just deal with it.
They have to go see her.
I talked to her on the phone, they have to make this somewhat normal.
What do you do?
You know?
And they can't give up on her, you know, she's actually, or he's
act they're actually all she has.
So it was just really heartbreaking, um, in a lot of ways, I especially,
again, felt really bad for the dad of Morgan's dad, because I felt like he
really took this burden upon himself.
When he communicated about it, he felt like that it was his fault.
You know, they said that, oh, it's a possibility.
I don't know what the percentages that this kind of thing could be carried
down and, and, you know, in lineage.
Um, but, uh, no matter what the percentage is, he I'm sure blamed himself.
And when he talked about him himself, having schizophrenia and
his wife even says that he, um, you know, was high functioning.
So she didn't think that any, he was.
Outwardly strange, but he himself says I was seeing things all the time.
I just got used to them.
He was seeing hallucinations, you know, he imagined walking around
with all of this disturbance and distraction and your eyeline.
Cause you're seeing like your peripheral point of your peripheral vision.
You're probably seeing all kinds of crazy stuff.
He just got used to it.
But then that's why I think he felt the worst about the situation, because
I think he took it upon himself.
Um, the responsibility anyway, that this is something that he could
have stopped and he could have kept this from happening to his daughter.
And that was the biggest heartbreak was that he couldn't do anything about it.
And he could have, he somehow participated in, um, this situation for her.
It was really, really sad.
It's a good documentary.
So I would definitely take a look.
Brittney Sherman: So Morgan he's officially diagnosed with schizophrenia,
but not until she's been in jail or juvenile detention for almost three
years, because when she goes to trial.
She immediately pleads for, uh, not guilty by meat, by reason of mental
disease or defect, because she now has a diagnosed condition of schizophrenia.
Despite the fact that it doesn't come on until later in life, obviously it
affected her tragically very early.
And I think when you watch the, the splinter man documentary, or you
can watch, uh, the 20, 20 special, or you can look on YouTube, there
are lots of videos of the trial.
I think it's visibly tragic how you can view the, the way the toll that
her disease has taken on her in the time that she's been in jail.
Oh yeah.
She is.
She, she looks like a completely different person and she looks completely
disheveled and all out of sorts.
And a Nisa is actually quite the opposite.
She's very well put together and a very cognizant coherent
of the, uh, of her surroundings.
Uh, Morgan was sentenced to 40 years in a state psychiatric hospital
in both of their sentencings.
The girls both expressed great remorse for what they did.
Morgan's mom still to this day feels that Morgan is not a threat
because she is adjusting very well.
And she's responding well to the medication.
And both girls are eligible to petition for reevaluation in 2020.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Wow.
If they petition and they pass some sort of test, because I think the
criteria is to get out early, all of their symptoms have to be gone.
So the way that the, the for Morgan, the way it works is she sent us to
a maximum of 40 years to live an indeterminate sentence involving at
least three years locked confinement.
In addition to involuntary treatment in a state psychiatric Institute until complete
resolution of symptoms or until age 53.
So think about this in a couple.
I mean, she, most of the videos that I saw where she was a bit older and
she was going through the trial and the sentencing, she definitely looked
like this had taken its toll on her.
You're right.
For sure.
No, not to mention just generally when you have mental issues and, and,
and defects, it wears on you, you know, the struggle of trying to keep.
Some kind of normal state is really hard for these folks.
So it's a lot of work.
I think that people who don't have those issues take it for granted.
Um, and the struggle is real for them.
I, I don't know.
I mean, like I said, it would, time will tell for Morgan.
I think that medication was probably really helpful for her.
Um, and you know, I don't know what her understanding is of
her crimes in her sentencing.
I think she apologized to Peyton and her family and she was really sad.
She was crying, you know, she said, I'm so sorry.
Um, but a lot of the other videos I saw with Morgan in the, in the
trial, and of course this is who knows what kind of meditation,
meditation medication she was on.
Um, but she seemed very out of it.
She seemed like she was.
Like she was looking around the room in the courtroom.
Like she was seeing things that the nobody else was.
I,
Brittney Sherman: yes.
I totally know exactly
Sonia Meza-Leon: what you're talking about.
Like looking off into space and kind of like, I don't
Brittney Sherman: think she was medicated at that point
Sonia Meza-Leon: really, because I wouldn't seem like they would
have started that immediately, but
Brittney Sherman: she wasn't diagnosed until it went to trial almost three
years after she was originally
Sonia Meza-Leon: arrested.
She still looks like that.
She still looked like that when she's
Brittney Sherman: older, but at 15, she looks at like that three
years after she's essentially been in jail before she was diagnosed.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So it took him three years when she
was in jail to diagnose her.
Brittney Sherman: I think so.
I don't think that she was diagnosed until really the trial phase.
Sonia Meza-Leon: That's crazy.
What were they doing with her in there?
Well, I
Brittney Sherman: think the belief was that she was just a
Sonia Meza-Leon: criminal think, look at the videos where.
Young, she's 12 to whatever, 14 walking around in the courtroom.
And, um, I think it's apparent that she's got some problems she's,
you know, definitely she's looking off again, you know, I mean, it's,
she's like, doesn't end this haze.
She's not lucid.
Brittney Sherman: And it's also, if she was diagnosed earlier, She wasn't
understood was not under the proper care.
So whatever her, the water treatment was would have been the treatment based
on the prison, not under the direct care of a doctor who treats this all.
Oh,
Sonia Meza-Leon: I thought that she went into a mental institution immediately
in a new state in juvenile jail.
Brittney Sherman: No, both girls stayed in juvenile jail.
She's yeah.
They were not, they were not moved to the state facility, the hospital
until after they were Sutton.
Oh,
Sonia Meza-Leon: right.
Yeah, because Morgan's mom says that she goes in there.
There's no, there's no window.
She's in there by herself.
And so her, the mom says, well, thank goodness.
She doesn't actually mind because she's got friends in there.
She.
I don't know if we talked about this, but Morgan had a lot of sort
of fantasy friends that she talked about and that she said were with her.
And so I think a lot of the time she spent in solitary confinement, she actually
thought she had people in there with her.
She probably,
Brittney Sherman: we did.
And Morgan, I think displayed that she was highly suggestible or early on in
Sonia Meza-Leon: life.
Well, if you fit, I mean, I, and I agree with you.
The thing is that that in and of itself is a great, makes a great case for
how a Nisa contributed to her problem.
Because a Nissa, if a Nissa hadn't introduced her, this
wouldn't have happened.
It may have happened later, but it probably wouldn't have happened
in this way, but it probably would have been something else.
And
Brittney Sherman: Annisa even admits that if she never told Morgan
about slender, man, chances are, this never would have happened.
Yeah.
And I think a Nissa accepts that responsibility.
Sonia Meza-Leon: This is me and my movie had going, Ooh, this is like a really
interesting story because I could, if I was, if I was writing a screenplay about
this, I would continue this as one, the Nissa gets out when she's 35, she starts
writing to Morgan in, you know, her, her rehabilitative state Morgan gets
out at 53 and Nissa has waited for her.
They have been fighting all along to go and continue this, you know, try
to try to kill Taylor, try to kill Payton, but I could see them play.
And so if I was, you know, S you know, screenwriter, I'm writing now a script
about how Annisa has gotten now, when she's 35, she started writing to Morgan.
They've been plotting all of these years until Morgan gets out when she's 53 and
then together, they go track down Payton.
And it's like this Bridget Fonda, fricking Jennifer, Jason Leigh, like,
you know, crazy horror movie where they go and they find her at her house.
You know when she's, she's gotta be 53
Brittney Sherman: too, right?
Yeah.
They're all the same age.
They're all the
Sonia Meza-Leon: same age.
Right.
So they go track her down and you know, and they're like, oh, we're going to
finally get you paid and opinions.
Like, God, dang it.
Why didn't anybody listen to me and put you guys away for life.
You know, that's the kind of screen on my end that I think is entertaining.
And of course, you know, it's so far fetched, but at the same time,
if I was painting and I had gone through all this trauma and this
had happened to me and I w you know, there was a little teeny piece of me.
That's like, good Lord.
When these people get out.
Oh yeah.
35 and 53.
Where are they?
Can they find me?
I'm still scared.
What the heck?
Where
Brittney Sherman: am I going to be?
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna raise your story a little bit.
Cause I didn't really even think about that.
I mean in order to tie it in back to slender, man.
And if we're going to take these girls at their words, in their
true belief of slender, man, I
Sonia Meza-Leon: think technically it never stops.
They keep believing, even though they pretend like they don't the point.
Brittney Sherman: That's exactly where I'm going.
They're still consumed by the idea of slender.
Yeah.
So,
Sonia Meza-Leon: well, he's got a captive audience, literally because
they are in freaking jail detention and you know, it's like people are still
writing stories and articles about it.
Well, these are the people like, I mean, I could see Morgan in her head, like a
slender man's next to me, you know, myself for like 40 years, you know, calculating
and figuring this out with me, uh, Nisa, you know, I'm in jail slender, man,
slender, man, Slenderman, Slenderman.
I mean, what are these girls thinking about?
Okay.
Brittney Sherman: So of course all hypothetical.
We hope none of this happened, but we're writing a movie
Sonia Meza-Leon: filmmaker's point of
Brittney Sherman: view.
So we're talking about a screenplay.
Yeah.
We're talking we're actively live.
In the moment running are
Sonia Meza-Leon: going to be huge, by the way folks, the girls get
Brittney Sherman: out.
Uh, they track down Peyton, they succeed, they go through
with it and the murder Peyton.
And now in my mind, the go into a forest, like situation thick Pan's labyrinth.
I know it's so good.
And so God, they ultimately go into like, they go down into the forest.
I don't know.
They go downstairs or maybe they just go through the forest and they find
slender man's castle and he is seated and he is seated there on a throne and
he dubs them or Knights them official proxies what they've always wanted.
They're entirely.
Sonia Meza-Leon: So are you saying that their fantasy for them
becomes real and then they go off?
Is this an alternate alternative universe or alternate universe?
Brittney Sherman: So I think you can go one way or another.
It could be an alternate universe or could
Sonia Meza-Leon: be, I mean, if you want the biggest bang for
your buck, the point of it is that you prove this Letterman's real.
Brittney Sherman: That's where I originally was no scares.
The bejesus out of people is to prove that he's real.
The alternate is that this is all happening in their heads.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Yeah.
Well, I think it could be both because I think that's the same
with Pan's labyrinth, which is a fantastic million people.
If you haven't seen a lot of beautiful, but, um, that it's,
it's all about perception.
Like for the girls, they could go off into their mansion and
wouldn't, you know, funder men.
But the reality of it is is they just go off and just sit
down in the weather and die.
I mean, there's not much differentiation between those two
when you're talking about like this, this lapse of reality, right.
The contact, you know, it's just, um, I mean, and we're not saying that this
is a great story, but we're saying this is a great, it's a great story.
It's not a great situation because there's an actual events and
they're actual people tied to it.
But if you were going to write a screenplay about something,
this will be really interesting.
There's a lot of avenues to cover.
No one wants
Brittney Sherman: this as public.
This is officially copyrighted by us.
So if anyone else tries to make this.
We get the royalties.
Sonia Meza-Leon: I think there's a fan Eli rock.
Where are you, buddy?
You need to make this movie.
Oh,
Brittney Sherman: I would like to see it go to, uh, uh, what's the name?
What's the name of the company they're doing?
Yes.
I would love to see this house.
I would love that because they take more of a psychological, uh, take on things
and Eli Roth is more just the violence.
Sonia Meza-Leon: All right.
Well, that's all I have for this case.
Um, you know, again, all due respect to the fam all of the families,
and I hope they can heal from this.
You know, my take my final take on this is again, I, um, I appreciate
the mental issues and trying to get folks help and rehabilitation, and
I'm glad that, um, At least Morgan is in a place that can help her.
It sounds to me like a niece is still in jail, juvenile jail.
Is that correct?
I don't know.
A niece is in the hospital with her.
Great it with her, no
Brittney Sherman: contact.
They're both in,
Sonia Meza-Leon: they're both in the hospital because I I've always
found that really strange that people seem to think that folks who have
mental problems should be in jail.
It doesn't make any sense.
That's not the place where they get help.
I mean, a great case for that Charles Manson.
And I know everybody hates Charles Manson, but if you think about Charles Manson
and the way that he conveyed his message while he was a lot more aggressive, he was
still very confident in his communication.
And he believed when he believes so strongly that nothing else mattered.
And that's honestly the way Morgan kind of reacted to this.
She's a 12 year old grille.
Sweet, nice.
Then you got crazy Charlie Manson over here, but at the end of the day, both had
mental issues, both needed help, you know, and Charlie went to jail and never got.
And I think that's probably one of the biggest problems we have in this country
is the way that we approach, you know, rehabilitation in jail in general, you
know, the con always the conversation.
Is it punishment or is it rehabilitation?
Are you really just sticking someone in a hole and just saying, bye,
you're never coming out again.
We don't want to hear from you, but if we're really talking about taking people
and putting them in a situation where they can improve their lives and come
out as, you know, productive citizens, that's a different approach altogether,
you know, mental, mental illnesses, illnesses come in a variety of shades and
colors and, um, and extremities, honestly.
I mean, you know, like you said, it's a spectrum.
Some people can have no issues, um, but it doesn't take much, or a traumatic
event could really push them over the.
So to
Brittney Sherman: finish this, I'm going to go a little afterschool special,
but I think it is still very important.
If anyone is out there listening and having issues, whether it's,
uh, schizophrenia like issues, whether you're dealing with anxiety
or depression, please get help.
It makes a difference.
Medication is okay.
And, uh, it's, it's a problem and a stigma that we have in this country,
but I don't think it's one that we should, because I think it affects
more people than people realize.
And it's important that it's treated properly and that stigma is broken down.
Sonia Meza-Leon: Absolutely I a hundred percent agree with Brittany.
There's nothing wrong with reaching out and getting help.
There's nothing wrong with talking to people.
If you think that they need help, there are ways to do it.
That's not intrusive.
Be a human, be nice to your people and ask them how they are.
And maybe they'll tell you the truth and tell you that they need some help.
And please help.
Brittney Sherman: All right.
I think that's, we're going to where we are going to wrap it up for this
episode of the slender man stabbings.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Uh, I got a little surprise at Sony doesn't even know about, but I, uh, am
going to say that for the first person that tweets us at Scarlet podcast and
uses the hashtag slender, you are going to get a brand new Scarlet t-shirt I'm
Sonia Meza-Leon: excited.
Awesome.
Yes, we, again, you know, thanks to all of our folks out there, who've
really helped us, you know, build our brand, you know, logos music,
thanks to all of you guys out there.
And, you know, we're hoping that you're going to like our, uh, our
promotional material as much as we do.
All right.
Have a good one.
Thanks guys.
Have a great one.