Slender Man stabbing: Morgan Geyser appears in court Tuesday

WAUKESHA, Wis. - Morgan Geyser, one of two people convicted in the 2014 Slender Man stabbing, appeared in a Waukesha County courtroom on Tuesday, Dec. 23 for a hearing on her conditional release. 

On Nov. 25, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections filed a sealed petition that sought to revoke Geyser's conditional release. The petition was filed after Geyser cut off her electronic monitoring bracelet and left her Madison group home last month.

During Tuesday's hearing, Geyser did not contest the state's petition to revoke her release privileges. The court granted the petition to revoke conditional release.

Conditional release plan

The backstory:

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Scott Wagner signed off on a plan in July to release Geyser from a state psychiatric hospital where she had spent the last seven years and place her in a Madison group home on GPS monitoring.

Geyser had petitioned the court for years before being granted conditional release. She was serving a 40-year sentence at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for stabbing her classmate in 2014 to please the fictional character Slender Man. She was 12 years old at the time.

Geyser arrested

What we know:

Geyser cut off her Wisconsin Department of Corrections monitoring bracelet and left a Madison group home on Saturday night, Nov. 22. 

Geyser was found and taken into custody late Sunday night at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois. 

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The Posen Police Department said Geyser and a male subject took a Greyhound bus from Wisconsin to Chicago and then walked to Posen. Posen is about 25 miles south of Chicago. 

Officials have since identified the male subject as 43-year-old Chad Mecca, who was also taken into custody. He was charged with criminal trespassing and providing false information to police and was later released from custody. 

2014 Slender Man stabbing 

Dig deeper:

Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. 

All three girls were 12 years old at the time. Leutner barely survived. 

Geyser and Weier fled after the attack but were arrested as they were walking on Interstate 94. They told investigators they attacked Leutner to earn the right to be Slender Man’s servants and feared he would hurt their families if they didn’t follow through. They had planned to walk to Slender Man’s mansion in northern Wisconsin after the attack, they said.

Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon in 2017, but like Geyser, claimed she was mentally ill and not responsible for her actions. She was committed to 25 years in a mental hospital but was granted release in 2021 after agreeing to live with her father and to wear a GPS monitor.

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Geyser ultimately pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2017 but claimed she wasn’t responsible because she was mentally ill. The following year, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren had committed her to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Scott Wagner signed off on the conditional plan to release Geyser from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, a psychiatric hospital where she has spent the last seven years.

The case drew widespread attention in part because of the girls’ fascination with the Slender Man character. Slender Man was created online by Eric Knudson in 2009 as a mysterious specter photo-edited into everyday images of children at play. He’s typically depicted as a slim, spidery figure in a black suit with a featureless white face. He has grown into a popular boogeyman and has appeared in video games, online stories and a 2018 movie.