Slender Man stabbing: Morgan Geyser hearing on conditional release

MADISON, Wis. - Morgan Geyser may soon get another chance for conditional release after she was arrested last year after fleeing her group home. Geyser is one of the people responsible for the 2014 Slender Man stabbing of her then 12-year-old classmate.

Geyser petitioned the court for conditional release last month. She participated in Thursday’s (Sep. 3) hearing via Zoom. The now 24-year-old hopes to leave the Winnebago Mental Health Institute.

A judge sentenced her to be committed there for 40 years. Morgan Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, lured their classmate, Payton Leutner, into the woods. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. After multiple attempts for a conditional release, Geyser was granted one last year and transitioned to a group home in Madison. In November, Geyser cut off her monitoring bracelet and was found in Illinois. Defense attorney Anthony Cotton says Geyser is ready for another try. He points to a recent Supreme Court ruling that found the only reason someone can be confined to an institution is if they are a danger to others.

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"Leaving a group home was a bad idea. But she didn’t do something violent. She didn’t do something dangerous. She wasn’t armed. Didn’t hurt anybody," Cotton said.

"The state has some concerns given the decision-making process Ms. Geyser seemed to have gone through – blatantly violating the rules; cutting the bracelet off and leaving the placement she was in. So, I’m very interested to see how stable these doctors believe she is now," Prosecutor Abbey Nickolie said.

The same three doctors who evaluated Geyser in the past, will now submit new mental health evaluations to the court. Those three reports should be done well in advance of Geyer’s next hearing, which is scheduled for November.

Leutner’s family was also present via Zoom for today’s hearing but did not speak. Weier was granted conditional release in 2021.

Portions of this article were formatted using A.I. FOX6’s Bret Lemoine and an editor reviewed it for accuracy and tone prior to publishing.

Geyser arrested, release revoked

The backstory:

Geyser cut off her Wisconsin Department of Corrections monitoring bracelet and left a Madison group home in November 2025. She was found and taken into custody late the following evening at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois. 

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 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. 

Days later, the Wisconsin DOC filed a sealed petition that sought to revoke Geyser's conditional release. A Waukesha County judge granted the state's request in December 2025, and Geyser was then ordered back to a state psychiatric hospital.

The Wisconsin DOC later fired one of the employees as a result of the incident. That employee was one of three placed on administrative leave. The other two served unpaid suspensions and returned to work.

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 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.

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.

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

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