The first images and video of 12-year-old “Slender Man” victim Payton Leutner have emerged.
ABC’s “20/20” news magazine broadcast an in-depth interview with the girl’s parents in Wisconsin on Friday night and showed exclusive video and photos of the child looking happy and healthy.
She was not asked about the horrifying attack in May, during which she was stabbed 19 times by two so-called friends after the three had a sleep-over.
Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12, have been charged as adults for the brutal attack in the Waukesha woods. The girls admitted they tried to kill their friend as a tribute to Slender Man, a fictional Internet ghoul who preys on children.Stacie Leutner said she was in the backyard, painting patio furniture when a police officer and a plain-clothes detective approached, asking “Are you Payton’s mom?” she recalled.Payton “is meant to do something special” her dad, Joe, said. “She’s here for a reason ... to show the world to treat other people better.”
They told her Payton had been stabbed, and that she was bleeding around the heart.
Slender Man is a faceless, abnormally tall creature who preys on children. The ghoulish character was created on the Internet.
At the hospital, Stacie said her daughter was “terrified, she was crying she couldn’t breathe.”
The trauma nurses were counting the number of stab wounds on Payton’s body.
They stopped counting at 19.
ABC12-year-old Payton Leutner is seen here in video taken by ABC News for Friday night’s ‘20/20’ broadcast that showed the first images of the girl since the brutal ‘Slender Man’ attack that nearly killed her.
Dr. John Keleman, who performed surgery on the girl, said Payton had a particularly dangerous stab wound to her heart.
“If the knive had gone the width of a human hair further, she wouldn’t have lived,” he told the network.
Payton has returned to school, and was excited to go back, her parents said.
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She and Morgan had been friends for years, and Anissa was a new member of their group, Stacie said.
Morgan and Anissa became obsessed with the Slender Man figure, she said, while Payton was frightened by the macabre character.
When Payton stopped talking about Slender Man, Stacie said she figured that was the end of it.
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