In a clear-cut case of premeditated murder. Morgan and Anissa invited Peyton to a sleepover, having planned to lure her to the local park the following morning, Saturday. The original plan was to kill Payton in the park restroom. But someone might need to use the restroom Morgan and Anissa hurriedly decided to lure Payton into the woods by suggesting a game of hide-and-seek. Payton would have bled out if a bicyclist hadn’t spotted a little girl covered in blood and dialed 911. Despite barely clinging to life, stabbed 19 times in her arms, legs and torso, Payton had managed to crawl to a bike path.
The surgeon who saved her life would tell her and her parents that if one knife wound was just a millimeter closer to an artery in her heart, she would have died. 2014.Īnissa helped Morgan pin Payton down, handed the knife over and told her what to do.
Not quite what she told the police hours after the attack, sobbing uncontrollably as reality hit her straight in the face. Sentenced in September 2017 to a maximum of 25 years in a state psychiatric hospital after pleading guilty to attempted second-degree homicide (while convicted, the jury found her ‘not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect’), Anissa walks among us now, granted conditional release in July 2021. (Morgan Geyser too was convicted after being found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, having pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder she was sentenced to 40 years in a psychiatric hospital.) Morgan Geyser. Make no mistake, Anissa has always wanted out. And Anissa submitted a letter to the court, claiming to ‘…have exhausted all the resources available to me at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute,’ adding: ‘If I am to become a productive member of society, I need to be a part of society.’ Confined to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh, Wisconsin since December 2017, Anissa, now 19, petitioned the court for conditional release early this year it was granted after three psychiatrists informed Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren in writing that she exhibits no signs of psychosis. Judge Bohren does not consider Anissa a threat to society and said so, ordering her to be released after 60 days, ample time in which to decide where she would live and how she will support herself. She is required to continue with therapy and medication and will remain under state supervision until 2039, when she will be 37 years old. Lucky Anissa, serving 3 ½ years for premeditated murder, ordering a so-called friend to do the dirty work. With friends like Anissa, who needs enemies? Not that Morgan Geyser is blameless she appeared to relish the attention she received when interviewed by the police, having, along with Anissa, left Payton Leutner to bleed to death in a forest hours earlier. Payton’s parents decided to comment after Judge Bohren ordered Anissa released. ‘Through this entire ordeal, we have continued to place Payton’s safety and the safety of the community as our top priorities and those priorities will not change.’ ‘Our family has worked very closely with the Waukesha District Attorney’s office throughout this process and we are aware of the pending conditional release,” Stacie and Joe Leutner said in a prepared statement. Payton will never be the same, revealing five years after the attacks that she sleeps with a pair of broken scissors under her pillow every night ‘just in case’. Yet she is remarkably positive in her outlook, saying she would ‘thank’ Morgan Geyser because the stabbing led to her devising ‘a plan’ for her life, ‘because of everything I went through.’. Today, Payton is an exceptionally happy person who clearly enjoys her life. They bonded quickly, as Payton recalled in 2019: She once considered Morgan her best friend, having approached her after seeing her eat lunch alone at school. ‘… was great at drawing and her imagination always kept things fun.’ ‘She had a lot of jokes to tell,” she remembered. If only Payton had known that Morgan was using search engines to plan a psychiatric defence for murder.