Documentary looks at defense of Geyser in Slender Man stabbing.

Byline: Erika Strebel, erika.strebel@wislawjournal.com

In May 2014, two 12-year-old Waukesha girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, lured their friend, Payton Leutner, into a Waukesha park and stabbed her 19 times.

It was the start of acase that quickly became national news and continues to enthrall filmmakers. In 2017, HBO released "Beware the Slender Man," a documentary which its makers alleged would explain why Weier and Geyser haddone what they did. Last year, Sony Picturescame out with "Slender Man," a horror film about four friends who appear to have summoned the character when one of them goes missing.

Now, thelatest work to crop upis a documentary called "Slender Man Stabbing: The Untold Story," which was released last month on the cable channel REELZ.

REELZ's piece, produced by Dorsey Pictures, takes a particularly close look at Geyser.The film features interviews not only with the lawyers involved in the case, including one of Geyser's defense lawyers, the Waukesha attorney Tony Cotton, but also investigators and Geyser's trial consultants, one of whom was Rob Rosenberg, owner of Hartland-based Rosenberg Consulting Services.

"As we go through the process, especially in litigation, you're dealing with things as they're happening, but you're also trying to form the long-term strategy," Rosenberg said. "I think once all is done I think that you have a better understanding of the impact of the decisions that were made along the way."

He said he thought the filmmakers had compiled an accurate presentation of what had happened while remaining solicitous of the victimand providing a good explanation ofRosenberg Consulting Service's role in the defense.

In the end, Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree homicide as part of a deal struck with prosecutors and was sentenced last year to 40 years in a mental hospital. She recently filed an appeal. A jury separately...