You're listening to an Ono Media podcast.

Good morning and thanks for joining me for Rise in Crime.

Your morning caffeine hit, all about crime.

I'm Mama Jules.

And a case from 2014 re-emerged in the headlines this week when a judge granted the release of Morgan Geiser.

Okay, that name might not be familiar to you, but I bet when I tell you she was the mastermind

behind the slender man stabbings, you will nod your head yes, remembering the terrifying

story of two 12-year-old girls, Morgan and Anisa Weir,

who lured their friend Peyton Lutner into the wooded area of a local park and stabbed her 19

times, all in the apparent need to satisfy the fictional character, Slender Man.

Now, we have to go back to 2009, when an online forum called Something Awful.

And yeah, that's the name.

It makes it sound like I'm saying that it was an awful name.

No, the actual formal name is Something Awful.

Well, that forum, they held a paranormal Photoshop contest, and the image of Slender Man was born.

And it's a super tall, thin character with an all-white head, but there is no individual features on that head.

He was created wearing a black suit, a black tie, black shoes, and a white colored shirt.

The stories about Slender Man expanded over a couple of years, and the fear was this fictional

character could cause you to, like, actually experience real life things, like maybe a coughing

fit, or Slender Man might cause you

to forget everything, like amnesia. Well, in the Slender Man fiction, he's often shown hiding

in forests. So Slender Man was created. Then it really went viral on the creepy pasta websites,

...