Murder and Mimosas Podcast
A true crime podcast with a focus on lesser known crimes and the background of those who commit these heinous acts. Each case is told with a bit of southern sass, but with tons of in depth research and respect for those lost. Join this mom and daughter duo as they sip their mimosas while diving into tragic cases. New episodes every Saturday, just in time for brunch (and a mimosa of your own)!
Murder and Mimosas Podcast
Wicked Wednesday: Slenderman
Sources:
https://theslenderman.fandom.com/wiki/Proxy
https://youtu.be/kbP1wUx8mYw?si=z2529UOJySJLndAP
https://m.imdb.com/interest/in0000059/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
http://ftp.wickedhorror.com/features/3-horrifying-crimes-inspired-slender-man
Book a cruise with Murder and Mimosas:
https://saltykissestravel.com/truecrimehalloween
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1336304093519465
https://twitter.com/Murder_Mimosas
https://www.instagram.com/murder.mimosas/
murder.mimosas@gmail.com
https://uppbeat.io/t/the-wayward-hearts/a-calm-hellfire
License code: ZJZ99QK39IWFF0FB
DarkCast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Murder and Mimosas a true crime podcast brought to you by a mother and daughter duo.
Speaker 2:Bringing you murder stories with a mimosa in hand. With a mimosa in hand, murder Mimosas is a true crime podcast, meaning we talk about adult matters such as murder, sexual assaults and other horrendous crimes. Listener discretion is advised. We do tell our stories with the victims and the victims families in mind. However, some information is more verifiable than others. However, you can find all of our information linked in the show notes.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Murder Mimosas. I'm Shannon and I'm Danica. It's October and, in staying with our spooky urban legends and paranormal, today we are going to be talking about Slender man. Now, I'll admit I had not heard of Slender man until 2014. Which, of course, we will discuss. Why has you heard of Slender man before 2014, danica?
Speaker 2:You know, my memory is awful. I don't even remember 2014. I've heard like the name Slender man, but I don't really know a whole lot about Slender man well, slender man is said to be between 6 to 14 feet, depending on who's telling the story it's like a guy on a dating website. He says he's 6 foot, but he's really 5'5 maybe.
Speaker 3:Maybe sounds about right, but this guy is tall, skinny, always wearing a dark suit, faceless, and in some stories he has long arms like tentacles. We all hear stories of the boogeyman. Over the years that have been adapted to people's stories and, danica, I guess ours were the stories of Savannah that I told you and your sister.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a boogeyman.
Speaker 3:You pretended to be possessed it was still a boogeyman story, but my mother told my sister and I about a little boy named Johnny. So this is like 2014. Well, I guess, before that, are you going to tell us who Johnny is? It was a story my mom made up about a little boy that he would. I don't know if I could tell this story, she may kill me. She told him to, or the little boy was supposed to go get hamburger meat from the store and he went and got it from the graveyard and it was somebody's bottom, and then he would hear the somebody, the ghost, say johnny, johnny, bring me back my butt. My mom's gonna kill me if she hears that. So hers is a funny one, yours was creepy.
Speaker 3:Well she would always talk about Johnny. But on June 10th 2009, slender man was brought to life when Eric Hudson, under the pseudonym Victor Surge, entered a photo contest on the Something Awful Internet Forum. The challenge was to create paranormal images. Eric submitted two black and white images, both with children and the so-called Slender man in the images, and we'll link those pictures for you. One is just kids walking and you see Slender man in the background. The other is children playing on the playground and you see Slender man in the background.
Speaker 3:So Eric went the extra mile in the submission and wrote under the first picture we didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but it's persistent silence, outstretched arms, horrified and confronted us at the same time. And then it says 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead. The second one read one of two recovered photos from strangling city library, bizarre, notable for being taken the day which 14 children vanished and for what is referred to as the slender man. Deformity cited as foul defects by official Fire at library occurred and one week later, actual photograph confiscated as evidence. 1986. Photographer Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th 1986.
Speaker 2:So he didn't only add, he added these photos, but he went even further in and gave them backstories it's kind of like news article thing, to make them more believable, exactly and have you heard of creepypasta before danica? Um no not really so I had. I'm heard that just someone's really bad boss.
Speaker 3:Stop. I had not got on this side until right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, Hang on. I've got to say this because it's perfect. Before this episode, my mother so kindly brought me a bowl of pasta and I went to stir it up with her back to me. She turned around real quick and said that was a creepy sound and I was like, yeah, it's creepypasta.
Speaker 3:You know that worked out great, anyway. Yeah, that is a bad joke on my part, or her part, really. I didn't know about creepypasta, though, so I had not got on this site until researching for this podcast, but it's a site to read or submit creepy stories. They have a large category, such as abductions to zombies, so literally from A to Z. Once the story of Slenderman was born, many went to Creepypasta and submitted their own stories about Slenderman, which is why his arms and even his face are sometimes different according to whoever wrote the story. In some stories, he influences others to commit violent crimes or even suicide.
Speaker 2:I mean, he kind of sounds like a faceless Charles.
Speaker 3:Manson. He really does and has or had a cult following, kind of like Charles Manson, except he's a fictional character. So I don't use Reddit as a source material ever, but I do sometimes read things when I'm researching and I go down unnecessary rabbit holes, and this was no different. I was reading threads in Reddit of people asking where the actual pictures came from. They couldn't really have been photoshopped and things like that which really blew my mind that people didn't think these pictures could just be photoshopped.
Speaker 2:You never know how old the person is posting on there, though. It could have been a kid, but it also could have been an adult. You never know. And at this point, if they haven't seen AI, like I know, this has happened before AI. But if AI can make things look very realistic, so can people with Photoshop.
Speaker 3:Right, and yeah, you're right, it was before AI, but it's still. It was a warm day in Waukesha, wisconsin, when three girls, morgan, anissa and Peyton which the girls call Bella, but we will refer to her as Peyton set out for the park together. They had a sleepover the night before at Morgan's for her 12th birthday. They went to the skating rink the night before and then they played dress up with their American Girl dolls just a typical sleepover for 12 year old girls. Well, it seemed like it anyway.
Speaker 3:Peyton and Morgan had become friends in fourth grade when Peyton noticed Morgan sitting alone and befriended her. Morgan was a loner and she was a little odd and didn't have any friends at the time, but she and Peyton became fast friends and hung out often. Anissa had recently moved to town and Morgan noticed Anissa didn't have any friends and, probably due to the kindness shown to her by Peyton, she befriended Anissa. The three girls were together that night, but Peyton she befriended Anissa. The three girls were together that night, but Peyton had started to pull away Since sixth grade. Morgan had new interests and she and Anissa were more alike now than she and Morgan. In fact, peyton didn't really talk to Anissa or really feel like they were friends at all. Anissa had introduced Morgan to the Creepypasta wiki site and the two were obsessed with Slenderman. Peyton, on the other hand, could care less about these weird stories.
Speaker 2:I know they came out with like video games and maybe even a movie, if I remember right. So are they like obsessed With the games or like what do you mean? What do you say obsessed?
Speaker 3:To be honest, I don't think anyone really knew the extent of their obsession until later. But just obsessed with the stories, morgan drew pictures of him which we'll get into later. They were obsessed with him as if he were real and they talked about him as if he was. And I can't get into their heads, but I think they truly believe this man was real. So Morgan and Anissa had determined they were now proxies of Slenderman. Talk for a minute.
Speaker 2:What does that mean exactly? What does this consist?
Speaker 3:of. To be a proxy of Slenderman means that you are under the same influence that he is, or that you are under his control and you do things that Slenderman instructs or influences you to do. Apparently, proxies are also under mind control that aren't always aware, because their memories are suppressed by Slenderman, according to this story. According to this story, so the two have decided that they have to kill Peyton in order to keep Slenderman from killing them or their families. The two decide that they will kill Peyton once she has fallen asleep, at the sleepover. Now, that was their first plan.
Speaker 3:Then they've decided they will kill her in the bathroom stall at the park and I have to say, this literally gave me chills when I heard Anissa say this in a police video. They knew there were drains in the floor in the bathroom at the park and they were thinking her blood could just drain down the drain in the bathroom. And I had to remind myself this is a 12-year-old that I'm listening to, and I had to remind myself this is a 12-year-old that I'm listening to. They have her in a stall and Anissa knocks her head into the cement wall that she doesn't pass out. She's like oh my bad for hitting, you Didn't mean to do that. And then she has a little sidebar with Morgan. They decide they should take her out to the woods and stab her to death.
Speaker 2:With what they're 12. It's not going to be a kid or a pocket knife, right.
Speaker 3:Before they left the house, morgan did grab a kitchen knife and tucked it under her shirt and she showed Anissa and lifted up her shirt and showed Anissa. So they head out to the woods and Morgan says they're going to play hide-and-seek. She tells Anissa and Peyton to hide. Anissa and Morgan go in front of her and you know, just messing around, acting like they're hiding. Anissa decides she can't go through with this. Morgan isn't backing down though. She tells her just tell me when to do it. And Anissa says okay, just go crazy on her, go ballistic, ballistic. They knock Peyton down in the woods and Morgan begins to stab her while Peyton is lying there in shock saying I trusted you. Morgan ends up stabbing her 19 times in total. Anissa tells her they're going to get help, but she just needs to lay down because she'll lose blood slower that way. Anissa will later say that she never planned on getting help and did not think that laying down would slow the blood flow at all.
Speaker 2:I have to keep reminding myself, as you're talking, that these are just 12 year old girls. I cannot understand their total lack of like, emotion, sympathy, I mean I would be terrified if I had done this to someone and they just seem so callous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it blows me away too, and Morgan and Anissa just leave her there to die while they take off walking to Nicolette Forest, which is about three hours to get there by car.
Speaker 2:Why are they going there?
Speaker 3:According to them, slenderman has a mansion in the woods up there, and this is where people from Creepypasta live. So, to my surprise, peyton actually isn't dead and this girl is a fighter. She pulls herself up off the ground and she begins to walk, trying to find her way out of the woods. A man, greg Steinberg, is riding his bike in the park that day when he stumbles upon Peyton and calls the police. Mind you, peyton had a lot of blood that she has lost by this point, but when police arrived, they questioned her. She's able to tell them that her friend Morgan was the one who stabbed her and that Anissa was there too. They get Peyton to the hospital for surgery and begin to search for Morgan and Anissa Did.
Speaker 2:Peyton have any idea where the girls were headed? I mean like did they talk about it in front of her or anything.
Speaker 3:No, and in an interview on 2020, peyton says she didn't really converse with them about Slender man, since this wasn't her cup of tea. She knew they were both fascinated by him and talked about it a lot, but I think she just tuned those conversations out about him, so the girls had been walking about five hours when they found them on the side of the freeway. They bring the girls in for questioning in separate rooms and if you get a chance or half the time, I would listen to their interviews in their entirety, because they are bone chilling, in my opinion. Before the detective comes in, morgan's hopping around the room and she never seems concerned at all. Everything is so matter of fact, with no emotion. In fact.
Speaker 1:Let's listen to a little bit of her investigation and it would get in trouble. Well, we were just trying to sort this all right out and figure out what would happen. So you wanted to get locked up, so you were getting locked up. I wanted to. I didn't really genuinely want to be locked up, but at one point I sort of did. Just it seemed. So you were just out here a while ago, got in a sleepover night that didn't work out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why do you think it was your sleepover night? Because we would all be together. It was a flawless plan, actually.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're good.
Speaker 3:Anissa at times will wipe her eyes, but I don't know if that is more scared of what is going to happen to her now or what she did. She finds out in the interview that Peyton actually didn't die. The detective asks her how she feels about that and she says the good part of me is glad she didn't die, but the bad part of me really wanted her to die. Of course they contact all the parents and all of them were in total shock. They asked Morgan and Anissa's parents if they knew where the girls would have gone and they had no clue. They're looking through their rooms for clues and find on Anissa's cell a message she left that read this is my final wish to those that care Do not grieve my absence, but remember me for who I was. I love and cherish you all and wouldn't do you harm. End quote.
Speaker 2:I mean, it sounds like she was going to die and not something like a kid, right?
Speaker 3:No, not a 12-year-old yeah, it's creepy. So Morgan and Anissa were both avid readers and if you listen to their interviews, they are both pretty well-spoken for their age, and it just leaves you wondering how they could possibly not realize that Slender man was fictional. So the judge decides that Morgan and Anissa are going to be tried as adults. Possibly not realize that Slender man was fictional. So the judge decides that Morgan and Anissa are going to be tried as adults due to their horrendous crime and the fact that it was premeditated. And they seem to have zero remorse Right, they do not have any at all. So Morgan ends up pleading guilty and is sentenced to 40 years in a state mental hospital, as she should. She was evaluated, as all inmates are, to see if they're mentally able to stand trial, and she was diagnosed with early onset of schizophrenia.
Speaker 2:I know we've covered quite a few cases with like this type of diagnosis, but I don't think we've ever heard of a girl showing signs that early. For girls it's usually like late 20s to even their early 30s before they start showing signs of schizophrenia Right and in a Max documentary.
Speaker 3:Beware the Slender man. Morgan's mother said they weren't surprised with her diagnosis though, because her father has schizophrenia and they knew it was possible that she could have it.
Speaker 2:I mean that makes sense, but did she, like before this, exhibit any, you know, signs or symptoms of schizophrenia? Or are they just not that surprised because there's like a family history?
Speaker 3:I think more so because of her father. She asked were there signs in her like? Are there signs like we could be aware of? You know for our kids? And she just said that she wasn't very empathetic. She did say around three. They showed her Bambi and they were worried. It was too morbid but Morgan didn't show any empathy at all to the deer being killed.
Speaker 3:And the police did find many disturbing drawings of Slender man when they went through her room and some mutilated dolls that her parents weren't aware of. They said that they were aware of Slender man. She talked about it but like most parents, they thought she knew it was fictional about it. But like most parents, they thought she knew it was fictional. They had no idea at the level she was into this and her mother has noticed signs now since Morgan has been in the facility. She sometimes asks Morgan what she's going to watch on tv that night when she's on the phone with her and Morgan says it depends on who gets to pick the show, but Morgan is in the room alone. On who gets to pick the show, but Morgan is in the room alone. So Anissa also pled guilty and was sentenced up to 25 years in a mental institution. She was diagnosed with shared schizophrenic disorder. I'm sorry, shared psychotic disorder. And, danica, can you describe that for those who aren't familiar with it, since it's not very common?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really, really rare. It's only like one to two-ish percent of the population that are ever diagnosed with it. But it kind of makes sense for her to have that diagnosis. It's essentially a shared delusion among two or more people. There's usually the inducer, so someone who has a psychotic disorder, such as Morgan does, and then they influence the other person or other people to believe in their same delusional beliefs. I would say this is much less diagnosed than it should, because to me it often sounds like cult members.
Speaker 3:Right, because they all share the same crazy delusions together.
Speaker 2:Usually it's like the world is ending or aliens are coming, or something like that.
Speaker 3:Anissa was released on September 13th 2021. She has conditions that she must reside with her father. She's not allowed to access the internet outside of the home and what is in her home is monitored by the DOC. She is also required to wear a GPS tracker 24-7 and mandated to continue psychiatric treatment. I have to say I'm truly on the fence about how I feel about this. Four years in a mental health facility doesn't seem long, and I try to remind myself that she didn't stab Peyton, but she didn't stop Morgan either.
Speaker 2:So I mean, she's definitely an accomplice to the crime, but she was also very, very young, which makes me feel like she's probably a little more easily manipulated in that case.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Then there's the shared psychotic disorder, and the treatment for that is to separate the two. But what's her judgment like now? Will she find someone else to easily influence her behavior, or something more sinister in the future?
Speaker 2:I don't even know if you could get more sinister but you know, yeah, I mean I have to assume that that's part of like what the continued therapies before is before, but did they say, like how long she's required to continue this therapy?
Speaker 3:no, well, not that I found anyway. And we also have Morgan that has tried twice to be released and that has been denied. I know that you can take medication for schizophrenia and we also know many are notorious for not taking it. I have some other issues with Morgan too, though. She had checked out books from the school library about crime scenes, prison, mental health conditions before all of this went down, and I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. In fact, that probably looks like my library card.
Speaker 2:Are you thinking she was doing some sort of like research on mental health disorders or how to fake it or something?
Speaker 3:Maybe, I just don't know. I don't know to what length she would go to, or her mindset, I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't know, that's true.
Speaker 3:So this wasn't the only incident with Slenderman, though. In June 2014 in Cincinnati, ohio, a mother who is unnamed said her daughter tried to attack her with a knife. Her daughter was 13, and she lied in wait for her mother to arrive home from work. She was dressed all in black and wore a white mask. When her mother entered the house, she tried to stab her. Her daughter was taken to the juvenile detention center and has had mental health issues in the past. Taken to the juvenile detention center and has had mental health issues in the past. The mother believes she was trying to depict Slenderman, whom she was fascinated by. Also, in September 2014, a 14-year-old girl named Lily Marie Hartwell walked to the park with a pack full of knives, cookies and water after setting her house on fire, with her mother and brother inside. Luckily, the mother and brother survived thanks to smoke alarms waking them up. Sadly, their house didn't. This girl was also obsessed with Slender man and is said to be part of the reason for trying to kill her family.
Speaker 2:So I'm seeing this very strange reoccurring theme or trend of, you know, young teenage girls with some sort of mental health issue and they seem to be very susceptible to this character, this whole idea of Slenderman.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really odd, isn't it? Yeah, that's really odd, isn't it? So that's really all we know about slender man. If you are out in the forest or near the woods, keep an eye out for slender man and remember don't get close, because he has long arms better to grab you with our dears.
Speaker 2:We always recommend more bubbly and less oj cheers if you'd like to see pictures from today's episode, you can find us at murdermimosas on instagram. You can also find us at murdermimosas on Instagram. You can also find us at murdermimosas on TikTok, twitter, and if you have a case you would like us to do, you can send that to murdermimosas at gmailcom. And lastly, we are on Facebook at Murder and Mimosas Podcast, where you can interact with us there. We love any type of feedback you can give us, so please write and review us on Spotify, itunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.