On June 8, 2014, David Janisch, a private investigator hired by Morgan’s legal team, entered Morgan’s bedroom, trailed by her anxious parents. Tony had tasked Janisch with unearthing any evidence of mental instability from Morgan’s room and inventorying it in time for Morgan’s competency hearing.
As Janisch had driven to the Geysers’ that morning, the only sign that something had happened on Big Bend Road was a shrine to Bella, erected in a ditch near the site of her rescue. Messages of hope adorned paper hearts and crumpled pieces of posterboard. OUR HEARTS GO OUT TO THE VICTIM. STILL HERE. #WELOVEBELLA. Candles and stuffed animals were scattered in the grass as tributes.
Janisch, a retired Waukesha police officer, did not usually spend workdays sifting through Barbie doll collections. In Morgan’s bedroom, he found one very sticky Ken doll that was covered in glitter glue and seven mutilated Barbie dolls, their arms and backs slashed with injuries eerily similar to the ones Morgan had inflicted on Bella. Some had Slenderman symbols carved into their torsos or drawn in red ink. Others had hands or feet amputated. Janisch later testified that he was unable to find the missing appendages.
In Morgan’s closet, he discovered drawings of little girls covered in blood and holding knives. One had cat ears and a tail and stood over a dead girl’s body holding a scythe, with a word bubble above her head that read, “I love killing people.” Others chronicled Morgan’s growing belief in Slenderman; one piece of paper was covered with the word “no” written dozens of times, with an X drawn through the o to turn it into a popular Slenderman symbol, which Morgan had seen online. Phrases were raked into the page in sharp, violent strokes, the letters outlined over and over again, until they looked almost hairy.
“HE NEEDS NO FACE.”
“HE CAN UNDERSTAND.”
“WHY DO YOU RESIST US.”
“THE PAIN IS INSIDE.”
“IT TAKES YOU.”
“I want to die,” Morgan had written in her notebooks. “Help me escape my own mind.”
Matt and Angie watched as the warning signs they had missed were inventoried, one by one. When Janisch uncovered an advanced psychology textbook hidden in Morgan’s closet, they began to cry. Sixth grade teachers at Horning Middle School were still assigning speeches on astronauts. Advanced psychology was not on the syllabus. But Morgan had somehow gotten the book and snuck it into the house without her parents seeing. Part of her had known that she was sick, and left to her own devices, she had been determined to figure it out herself.
By June 24, Bella’s family had raised $48,000 toward their $250,000 goal. The Leutners told local reporters they felt “overwhelmed by the outpouring of support.”
“Our family would like to thank everyone who has supported our daughter on her miraculous road to recovery. Our little girl has received thousands of purple hearts from numerous countries and from most continents. We simply cannot put into words how grateful we are for the prayers, packages and heartfelt messages,” the family said in a statement.
“Together as a family, we continue to adjust to our ‘new normal.’ She has a courageous heart and bravely deals with both the physical and emotional challenges since the attack.
“Though many days consist of medical appointments and rehabilitation, recently she and her father enjoyed a ‘daddy-daughter night at the movies’ and thoroughly enjoyed a Disney film. It also included (after much persistence) a stop for a much-deserved treat at the snack area.”
The Leutners posted a photograph of Bella, shot from the neck down to protect her identity as a minor. She sat in a pile of purple hearts and was holding a sign that read THANK YOU. The caption read, “She wanted to say thank you to the many caring people whom she has never even met but have been so kind.”
A few weeks later, officers at the Washington County Jail placed Anissa on suicide watch after relentless bullying by the other juvenile inmates caused her to believe that she was a “fucking bitch” and a “monster” who did not deserve to live. For her own protection, Anissa got “smocked,” jail jargon meaning that she was moved to an isolated cell, stripped naked, and dressed in a “suicide smock,” also known as a “turtle suit,” a long, quilted vest considered safe apparel for suicidal individuals. Her glasses were taken away, and she was given an “activity bin” containing colored pencils and a dictionary to amuse herself.
“She didn’t receive any ongoing individual or group counseling?” Anissa’s attorneys later asked one of the officers who had “smocked” Anissa.
“No, on that,” one answered. “Nothing ongoing.”
“And no ongoing counseling for mental health issues either?”
“No.”
Physically, Bella was recuperating quickly. But her family’s spokesperson, Stephen Lyons, argued that measuring Bella’s trauma only in terms of bodily injury overlooked her inevitable long-term psychic wounds.
“When you stab a knife that deep into someone’s body, you’re going to create some pain that may stay with you forever or for a very long time,” he said. “But there’s the emotional and the mental part of this healing—and often we talk more about that.”
When asked by the press whether he thought the Leutners had forgiven their daughter’s attacker, Lyons said, “We don’t talk about forgiveness.”