In 2014, two 12-year-old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, lured their friend Payton Leutner into the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and attacked her 19 times to impress the fictional character Slender Man. Payton managed to crawl to a nearby road where a cyclist found her, and she survived after emergency surgery. Both girls were charged as adults but found not guilty by reason of mental illness — Weier was sentenced to up to 25 years in a mental institution and released in 2021 under super