As her assailants prepare for trial, Payton Leutner has started high school, where she’s thriving nearly 3 years after she was brutally stabbed.
Payton was 12-years-old when she was stabbed 19 times by two friends who wanted to impress a fictional character named Slender Man.
The pair, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, were in jail on Tuesday facing attempted murder charges, while Payton turned 15-years-old.
The teen, who has physically recovered from the horrific ordeal, has enrolled in Advanced Placement classes as a high school freshman in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
“Today, Payton is a strong young woman who is excelling in school and doing many things that a teenager would do with her family and friends,” family spokesman Steve Lyons told People.
Both of the suspects have pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease.
Morgan, 14, and Anissa, 15, will be tried as adults even though they were 12-years-old in 2014 when they reportedly lured Payton to a park for the premeditated attack. The pair left their friend to die before she was found by a cyclist.
The case was the subject of an HBO documentary “Beware the Slenderman.”
Morgan will head to trial on Oct. 2.
Anissa’s trial date will be announced at an upcoming hearing on Feb. 20.