'Slender Man' victim stabbed by classmates sleeps with scissors after attack
An American girl who was stabbed by her friends in 2014 as they tried to please the fictional character Slender Man has slept with scissors under her pillow since the gruesome attack, according to a victim impact statement.
Payton Leutner was stabbed 19 times in woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 2014 by Morgan Geyser while Anissa Weir urger her on. Payton was found by a passing cyclist. She barely survived her wounds.
All three girls were 12 years old at the time of the attack.
KETV 7 ABC Omaha reports, Peyton slept with scissors under her pillow and threw herself into her studies as a distraction following the attack, according to a victim impact statement written by her mother Stacie.
Weir and Geyser have been sentenced to time in a mental facility after they were initially charged with attempted first-degree homicide in May 2014.
Ms Leutner said the family didn’t oppose the pair’s plea deals, because Peyton hasn’t spoken about the attack since it happened.
"Joe and I raised Payton and her brother, Caden, to be empathetic and compassionate people," Ms Leutner wrote.
"In the end it was that compassion that led Payton into the woods with Morgan and Anissa. You see, Payton knew that if she wasn't Morgan's friend then Morgan wouldn't have any friends.
"She felt a need to protect Morgan and believed deeply that every person deserved at least one friend."
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The family also didn’t want her to relive the attack in court by testifying. Ms Leutner wrote asking Peyton to speak about it in front of a courtroom full of strangers seemed “cruel and unnecessary”.
Ms Leutner wrote Payton has 25 scars. Nineteen of these are from the attack with six more from surgeries on the girl’s heart, liver, stomach and pancreas.
The mum wrote when shopping for dresses for a recent school dance they were left with “only a few options” because of Peyton’s “angry and red” scars.
Beach holidays are “harsh reminders that swimsuits aren’t made for young girls with 25 scars”.
The attackers told detectives they felt they had to kill Payton to protect their families from Slender Man.
The character started with an online post in 2009, as a mysterious spectre Photoshopped into everyday images of children at play.
He is typically depicted as a spidery figure in a black suit with a featureless white face.
He was regarded by his devotees as alternately a sinister force and an avenging angel.
Weier faces more than three years in a mental hospital when she's sentenced Thursday local time.
Geyser will be sentenced in February.
