Morgan Geyser, the Wisconsin woman who stabbed a classmate 19 times at age 12 to impress the fictional character “Slender Man,” was taken into custody late Sunday. The news comes just hours after she cut off her monitoring bracelet and fled a Madison, Wisconsin, group home, police said.
Geyser, now 23, was conditionally released earlier this year from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, where she’d spent nearly seven years. Authorities say she removed her Department of Corrections ankle monitor Saturday night and vanished from the home where she was required to live.
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Madison police said they were notified of her disappearance Sunday morning. By late Sunday night, officials received confirmation that Geyser had been found at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois, roughly 20 miles south of Chicago. She was with another adult, though police have not identified that person.
A case that shocked the country
Geyser and classmate Anissa Weier were 12 when they lured their friend, Payton Leutner, into the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier urged her on, a crime the pair later said was carried out to appease “Slender Man,” a viral internet character they believed was real.
Leutner survived after crawling out of the woods, where she was found by a passing bicyclist. Both Geyser and Weier were sent to psychiatric institutions rather than prison. Weier was released in 2021 under GPS monitoring. Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and was ordered to remain institutionalized until a judge granted her release in January 2025.
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How she got out — and what happens next
It’s still unclear how Geyser escaped the group home or who may have helped her. Her attorney, Tony Cotton, said he urged her to turn herself in immediately, warning, “We worked too hard to secure her freedom for her to continue on this path.”
Police have not announced charges related to her escape, and Wisconsin officials have not said whether her conditional release will be revoked.
