On June 1, 2014, one day after Morgan arrived at the Washington County Jail, Officer Shelley Grunke discussed Morgan’s behavior during intake with a supervisor, saying, “That one’s gonna need a psych eval.”
Instead, Morgan was sent to the jail nurse and screened for tuberculosis as part of a standard health assessment. The jail had youth groups for drug and alcohol abuse, “but not really mental health treatment,” as one guard later testified. And while other juveniles at Washington County Jail were automatically assigned a social worker, who helped them cut through bureaucratic red tape to obtain special services like therapy and medication, superpredator laws left children charged as adults to cope without age-appropriate resources. As “adults,” Morgan and Anissa did not qualify for juvenile programming.
“Morgan is 12 years old,” Tony later wrote in a motion to have Morgan seen by the Waukesha County Department of Health and Human Services. “If she were detained within the Juvenile court system, she would have been evaluated by an intake worker and assigned a case manager.”
Instead, during Morgan’s first few days in jail, correctional officers watched through security cameras as Morgan sat alone in her cell, giggling and talking to nobody. Whenever they went to check on her, Morgan leaped away from the door and made her hands into “cat claws,” officers later testified, as though she had forgotten where, or what, she was. At mealtime, she took her food tray underneath the cafeteria table and sat on her haunches, swaying back and forth and rubbing her hands together like a praying mantis.
Meanwhile, in general population, Anissa wanted “someone to help her figure this out”; she didn’t understand what was happening and she wanted to go home. She drew a huge picture of all her extended family members, watching as she and her dad sat on the floor, opening presents. She developed the feeling that it’s normal to be lonely.
Back at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Bella was still attached to machines, recovering from surgeries on her abdomen and heart. When she had first come out of sedation, she panicked to find a large tube down her throat. Unable to speak, she managed to communicate to her parents by writing words on a portable whiteboard. Stacie and Joe kept a round-the-clock watch on her as she went through surgery after surgery. They took turns dashing home to grab clean clothes.
On June 2, two days after their arrest, Morgan and Anissa woke early for their first appearance in court. As often happened during tornado season, the weather that day was violent. In the parking lot outside the Waukesha County Courthouse, reporters leaned forward into the wind, gripping microphones, their hair whipping around their heads.
Inside the courthouse, emergency evacuation plans mounted to the walls explained the difference between the honking of a fire alarm and the steady, unbroken wail of a tornado siren. Paintings of barns and birch trees by Wisconsin artists lined the hallways. Flyers taped to the elevators alerted employees and visitors to an OUTLANDISH CUPCAKE SALE in the basement.
Matt and Angie waited for their turn through the metal detector, steadying themselves for the sight of Morgan in shackles. Tony was still in the process of getting permission for them to visit Morgan in jail. They had not seen her, or spoken to her, in two whole days—not since Saturday morning, when they had given her permission to walk to the park unchaperoned.
When Joe Leutner and Matt caught sight of one another outside the courtroom, they broke into sobs and hugged each other. But Stacie could not meet Angie’s eye. It would take years for her feelings toward the Geysers to melt into something resembling forgiveness.
“I was angry for a long time—especially [at] Morgan’s parents, [for] knowing that Morgan’s dad had schizophrenia,” Stacie would tell ABC’s 20/20 in 2019. “I thought that they were maybe just in denial and ignoring her symptoms.” She added, “But I recognize that they’re going through their own hell.”
Still unused to walking in shackles, Morgan and Anissa stumbled from their transport van to the courthouse. Anissa had still not said a word to Morgan.
As the chains caught between Morgan’s feet, she fell onto the pavement. A guard heaved her to her feet by the neck of her shirt, ripping her collar. “What is wrong with you?” he asked. When Morgan fell again, he demanded, “What the fuck is wrong?” The metal handcuffs rubbed against Morgan’s skin. Officers had cinched them too tight. By the end of the day, her wrists would be bleeding.
Inside the courthouse, guards locked Morgan and Anissa in two small cells. The girls were instructed to stick their shackled hands through a slot in the door so that guards could remove their handcuffs. Each cell had a toilet, but the girls were not allowed to use it without supervision. Seeing the guards’ eyes on them through the security window was embarrassing, but in the coming years, they would grow used to being watched.
The prosecutors in Morgan and Anissa’s case wore their hair in simple, military-style buzz cuts. Lead prosecutor Ted Szczupakiewicz had a reputation for being smart. But in court he tended to play dumb for the jury. During cross-examination of expert witnesses, he prefaced his questions with sarcastic remarks like “I was a little confused …” and “Well, you know everything, right?”
With her head hung low and her long blond hair nearly covering her face, Morgan entered the courtroom flanked by three armed guards, jerking slightly as she responded to things that only she could see or hear. She joined Tony at one of the defense tables. The two barely acknowledged each other. Tony stared at his laptop, which he kept open to his calendar. With Morgan, he was brusque and business-like; later, Tony would send Morgan’s legal bill directly to her in jail, prompting Morgan to call Angie crying, saying, “I don’t have any lawyer money.” When Angie chided Tony, he held his ground, explaining, “Morgan is my client.”
The Geysers appreciated Tony’s intelligence and dedication to Morgan’s case, but they found his bedside manner lacking. Sometimes Tony’s mom and cocounsel, Donna, would place a reassuring hand on Morgan’s shoulder. The Geysers wanted more of that.
Across the aisle, Anissa was already taking copious notes, as if being a good student might positively influence the day’s proceedings. On either side of her sat the state-appointed attorneys Maura McMahon and Joseph Smith. Her parents were taking their chances on public defenders.
From the pews, Morgan’s grandparents Bob and Dianna watched as Anissa’s lawyers approached Tony’s table, asking him questions and requesting copies of his materials. “They kind of followed Tony around,” as Bob later recalled.
At one point, he and Dianna overheard McMahon and Smith saying in regard to Tony, “We’re going to do what he’s doing.”
“And it was kind of pissing me off,” Bob said, “because we’re paying for both, for all attorneys, right here.”
Tony was aware that Anissa’s lawyers were modeling their defense strategy on his. But as someone who’d taken public defender cases in the past for forty dollars an hour, he knew both how important the public sector was and how limited its resources were. His goal in representing Morgan was not to punish Anissa, but to establish that adult prosecution in Morgan’s case was unconstitutional. Tony understood Bob and Dianna’s feelings on the matter, but in keeping with his character, his attitude was purely pragmatic.
The judge, a county commissioner with a gray mustache and matching toupee, heard Tony’s remarks. The Geysers wanted Morgan’s bail reduced from $500,000 so that she could await trial at home.
“All right. Thank you,” the judge said. Turning to Anissa’s attorneys, he added, “Ms. McMahon?”
McMahon responded, “I certainly wouldn’t disagree with anything that Mr. Cotton just said.”
Both defense teams had prepared their clients’ families for the worst. But when the county commissioner formally set Morgan’s and Anissa’s bail at $500,000, the Geysers and the Weiers were devastated.
Matt Geyser left the courtroom in tears, while Bill Weier stormed out in a barely contained rage. Despite not holding the knife, Anissa faced up to forty-five years in prison.
Later that day, Waukesha police chief Russell Jack held a press conference in which he struggled to articulate who Slenderman was and why two twelve-year-olds were being prosecuted in adult court. In the end, Jack justified the adult charge by pointing out Morgan’s and Anissa’s youth and their gender. Both were girls, and one didn’t expect young girls to try to kill each other, so the matter needed to be taken extra seriously. “The age of these suspects, and being female,” Jack explained, emphasizing the word “female,” “it all leads to …” He trailed off, as if the matter were confusing to him, too. “This is a very disturbing investigation—both suspects had a fascination with a fictitious character that often posted to a website that is a collection of small stories about death”—he glanced up from his notes with a serious expression—“and horror.” He was gaining momentum now, speaking with more conviction. “Parents should not be allowing their children to have unrestricted or unmonitored internet usage—whether it be on their computer, on their smartphone, on their PlayStation. All of those accesses to the outside world.”
Local news channel TMJ4 aired footage of Jack’s press conference before cutting to correspondent Jermont Terry, reporting live from the woods on Big Bend Road where Bella had been left to die. “Now they had second doubts,” Terry said. “But that didn’t stop them from going through with the unthinkable act.”
The feed cut back to the newsroom, where anchors Steve Chamraz and Carole Meekins shook their heads in astonishment at Jack’s and Terry’s words. A cartoon image of Slenderman flashed on the screen as Chamraz described Morgan’s and Anissa’s fascination with “the Slenderman” and “a website known as Creepypasta,” sounding out the words as if they were a foreign language.
“That’s a lot of weird terms right there,” Chamraz said. “But Waukesha’s police chief says parents need to learn these terms.”
“Just so stunning when you think we’re talking about twelve-year-old girls,” Meekins chimed in. “Knowing what your kids are doing online really is the only way to keep them safe.”
That afternoon, Horning Middle School teachers confiscated students’ iPads and told them not to talk about what had happened. They handled the stabbing much like they’d handled Morgan’s “attention-seeking” behavior: in silence.