- [Narrator] What is up, EWU Crew.
Today, we're covering three disturbing true stories
of murderous best friends.
These murders are arguably
some of the most disturbing ones you can come across.
Imagine putting your trust in a person.
A person you believe to be your best friend.
All for that individual to end your life
in a horrifyingly brutal way.
These are exactly the type of cases
we'll be diving into today, so let's get into it.
Number three.
Unfortunately, for 16 year-old Anel Baez,
she learned that not all best friends will be there for you
through thick and thin.
Sometimes friends turn their backs on you.
Some friends stab you in the back.
Well, Anel's friend, Erandy Elizabeth Gutierrez did,
literally, 65 times with a kitchen knife.
These weren't casual friends.
These were 16 year-old girls
who had been friends for a long time.
I mean, if I was comfortable enough to take naked pictures
with someone, you can be sure that's my best friend.
It shows how comfortable they were with one another.
Sadly, everything started to go south,
when Anel Baez posted those inappropriate pictures
on Facebook, for the world to see.
The two grew apart after the photo incident,
never really patching things up
or officially ending their friendship.
Fast-forward a few months later
and that's when Baez called Gutierrez
and asked her to come over
so they could settle the whole argument once and for all.
Perhaps even let bygones be bygones.
After arriving, Gutierrez excused herself to the bathroom,
but made a trip to the kitchen instead.
She grabbed a knife, went back into the other room,
and began stabbing Baez over and over.
Baez succumbed to her injuries,
after Gutierrez stabbed her 65 times.
The sad truth is that things could have been avoided
if Gutierrez's threats to Baez
had been taken more seriously.
Days before the murder, Gutierrez wrote on Twitter,
"It may seem that I am very calm, but in my head,
I have killed you at least three times."
She also threatened her
that she wouldn't make it to the end of the year.
I mean, she even told Baez she would bury her.
If those weren't warning signs,
then I don't know what those signs would look like.
It was clear that Gutierrez had a plan
and executed it at the most opportune second.
Gutierrez tried to cover her tracks
by attending Baez's funeral.
If she didn't wanna get caught, though,
I would've changed clothes
and at least wiped the victim's blood off.
Unfortunately, there's no true justice for Baez.
Gutierrez was going to be charged as a minor,
under Mexican law, but even if she is convicted,
she would only serve seven years in prison.
Number two.
Michele Avila was a 17 year-old girl
that learned in a horrible way
that if someone is going to stab you in the back
and betray you in the worst way possible,
it's most likely going to be your best friend.
Michele was best friends with Karen Severson and Laura Doyle
who had no idea that one day they would be her murderers.
Michele and Karen had been best friends since childhood,
but once they reached high school,
Michele became more popular
and was considered more beautiful
and that ate away at Severson, day in and day out.
In their junior year,
Michele started dating a boy named Randy,
but they didn't have a lasting relationship
because Randy liked to party a little too much.
After the two broke up, Karen started dating Randy.
Michele tried to warn her against being with Randy,
but Karen didn't really care what Michele thought.
The two ended up moving into an apartment together.
Later, Karen told Michele's mom, Irene,
that Randy had pulled Michele into his lap,
trying to throw a wrench into Michele's family.
Once Michele voiced her opinion
that Karen should break up with Randy,
she got so mad about it
that she completely stopped talking to Michele,
just like that.
There was already a little foreshadowing going on
for the friends, family and police, but they ignored it.
Michele and Karen got into a fight
in one of the local parks, 10 days before Michele's death.
Karen threatened her with a broken beer bottle
and witnesses claimed Karen pushed and slapped Michele.
Sadly, on October 5th, 1985, they found Michele's body
and there was no way her death was an accident.
She was facedown in a stream, in Big Tujunga Canyon
in Angeles National Forest
She had been forcibly drowned in eight inches of water.
Her waist-length hair was hacked off
and there was a four-foot log found
on top of her body, holding her down,
just to make sure she was staying right there.
The pain and disgusting actions don't stop there.
Karen acted as a crutch for Michele's mom, Irene.
She helped her through the sorrows of losing her daughter
and slowly began to try and take her place in their family.
Neither of the friends were suspected
and the case went cold for years.
It wasn't until 1988, when a girl named Eva came forward.
She was one of the teens that had taken the 45-minute drive
into the mountains and told the police about everything.
She explained how Karen
and Laura lured Michele to the creek.
Both Karen and Laura started yelling and screaming
at Michele about how she was sleeping around with guys,
including both of their boyfriends, before telling her
that she had wrecked too many relationships.
That's when Laura and Karen got physical
and began chopping off her long hair
while the other stopped her from getting away.
Once done, they shoved Michele's face down in the creek
and held her there.
To make sure her body would stay down in the water,
both girls pulled a four-foot tree log,
that weighed over 100 lbs, on top of Michele's body.
Then, the girls fled and acted like they had no idea
their best friend had been brutally murdered.
Karen and Laura were both convicted of second-degree murder
and were both sentenced to 15 years to life in jail.
Both women ended up serving 22 and 23 years.
45 and a half years collectively.
Disgustingly, when Karen Severson was released from prison,
she wrote a book about the murders and her time in prison,
then got a film deal.
Michele's family sued her in 2015
to make sure she wouldn't profit
off of murdering her daughter.
It's stories like these that make us question
who is really on your side.
Do you have friends that could turn on the drop of a dime?
Or would you trust your life
in the hands of your best friend?
Number one.
If you're a video game fan,
the name Slender Man gives you the image
of a tall gangly-looking man,
with pale skin and no facial features,
that runs around in the woods,
wearing a black suit and a red tie.
A character that could give you nightmares for weeks.
He started out as a character
for the 2009 Paranormal Photoshop Contest.
From there, Slender Man's creepy vibe was pulled
into the video game world, for his own full-length game.
The game involved hunting around the woods,
near a campground, looking for missing child's posters
and different notes that must be collected
to move to the next portion of the game.
Through the first person point of view,
the camera shakes and becomes static-riddled
whenever Slender Man gets too close for comfort.
I know, you might be like, "Awesome!"
and play it at the next big sleepover,
but the jump scares might be too much.
He makes you feel like you have to look over your shoulder
to see if you can see his tall lanky form
off in the distance.
But it's all just a game
and nothing like that is real, right?
Well, unfortunately for the town of Waukesha, Wisconsin,
back in 2014, they learned
that sometimes life can imitate art
in the worst way possible.
Two 12 year-old girls from Waukesha were convinced
that Slender Man was real, not just a fictional character
from the Creepypasta Wiki page.
The two girls planned on becoming servants for Slender Man
and wanted to live with him in a giant mansion.
They said they wanted to prove their loyalty to him,
once and for all,
but the only way to do that was by killing someone.
Sadly, on May 31st, 2014,
Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured their best friend,
Payton Leutner, out into the woods
for a friendly game of hide and seek,
only for things to turn deadly.
The girls were all 12 years old when this happened
and before that day, Payton had been a positive
and happy girl, looking to make friends with anyone.
She was the kind of girl
that liked being friends with everyone,
including the people no one else wanted to be friends with.
When she first met Morgan Geyser,
she was always sitting alone at lunch or in class,
so Payton sat with her and started a friendship.
Nothing seemed strange or out of the ordinary to Payton.
Morgan just seemed like a happy girl that was lonely
and together their friendship included sleepovers,
drawing and playing outside.
It wasn't until sixth grade,
when Morgan became friends with Anissa.
Anissa talked to her about Slender Man,
and that's where it all started going downhill.
Morgan would talk to Payton about Slender Man
and how she thought he was real.
Payton even told her that the whole thing scared her
and that she didn't like it.
She was only friends with Anissa
because Morgan really liked her
and Payton didn't want to seem
like she was trying to break up any friendships,
so even though the Slender Man business made her uneasy,
she tried to go along with it for Morgan's sake.
Anissa was always mean towards Payton,
like she was jealous of her being friends with Morgan
versus having her friendship all to herself.
The original attack the girls had planned
was to duct tape Payton's mouth shut,
stab her in the neck, and run away.
Their second plan was to attack her
in a public bathroom at a park.
It's horrible, I know, but the reason for that location was
because the bathrooms had drains
for Payton's blood to run down.
The attack they had decided on was
when the three girls went out
into the woods to play hide and seek,
but Payton had no idea that her life was on the line.
When it started, Anissa pinned Payton down,
and started stabbing her, while Morgan cheered her on.
After the attack was over,
they cruelly promised to get help,
but ditched their friend in the woods to bleed to death.
Miraculously, Payton was able to pull herself to a trail
where a nearby cyclist found her.
Doctors said two of her wounds were to major organs
and one missed a major artery of her heart
by less than a millimeter.
Anissa even had the audacity to tell Payton
to lay down after the attack
because the blood would come out slower.
It wasn't until 2017 and 2018
that Payton would receive the justice she deserved.
You might think this would have been an open and shut case
in the courtroom, but you'd be surprised.
In 2017, Anissa Weier tried to plead guilty
for attempted second-degree murder, but the jury rejected it
and found her not guilty by mental disease or defect.
Then, following in 2018,
Morgan Geyser tried to plead guilty as well,
but the jury found her not guilty
by mental disease or defect.
She was sentenced to 40 years in a mental health facility
where she would undergo treatment
for her mental health issues.
She was also the youngest patient ever to be treated
at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute.
Not only did Waukesha, Wisconsin feel the turmoil
from this horrible event,
but so did the rest of the internet
once the story went viral.
Right after it happened, the Waukesha school district
blocked all of the school's computers
from accessing Creepypasta's website
because of the Slender Man character.
The creator of Slender Man even released a statement,
saying, "I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin
and my heart goes out to the families of those affected
by this terrible act."
However, he wanted to make it clear
that this isolated incident didn't represent himself,
the Slender Man character, or the Creepypasta community
where the character originally came from.
Waukesha Police Chief said
that the stabbing should be a wake-up call for all parents,
adding that the internet is full of information
and wonderful sites to teach and entertain,
but that it can also be full of dark and wicked things.
There is truth there.
The internet is full of some scary,
horrible and evil things, but in this case,
it was just a drawing that took whole new meaning
for a troubled young girl.
Payton's keeping positive and moving on with her life,
far from the reaches of Slender Man or anyone else.
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