Slender Man stabber loses conditional release after escape

WAUKESHA, Wis. (CN) — Morgan Geyser, who stabbed her best friend 19 times in 2014 to appease the horror character Slender Man, was recommitted to a mental health facility on Tuesday after she ran away from a group home in November.

Geyser, 23, had been incarcerated at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for over a decade for her part in the premeditating stabbing of her friend, Payton Leutner. The attack drew global attention at the time in large part due to Geyser’s defense — that the murderous creepy pasta character Slender Man made her do it.

She was granted conditional release in January, and, after authorities ironed out the details of where she would go,released to a group home in Madison over the summer.

In November, Geyser reportedly cut off her Department of Corrections ankle monitor and hopped on a bus to Chicago with a friend, Chad Mecca, 42. Authorities say the pair walked 20 miles from the bus station to Posen, Illinois, where they were detained by local police.

On Tuesday, Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Scott Wagner revoked Geyser’s conditional release and sent her back to the Winnebago facility.

Geyser and her attorney Anthony Cotton appeared by Zoom from separate locations for the hearing. She wore a gray hoodie and looked down for most of the relatively brief proceeding.

Geyser didn’t oppose the state’s request for revocation, which authorities filed Nov. 25 after she was extradited back to Waukesha from Illinois.

The hearing was scheduled to give Geyser the opportunity to consent on the record to waive an evidentiary hearing, during which the state would have had the burden to prove she had violated the conditions of her release.

Madison police did not respond to requests for comment on whether Geyser will be criminally charged for her escape; it’s a felony in Wisconsin to intentionally remove a court-ordered ankle monitor, punishable by up to three-and-a-half years in prison and a hefty fine.

As Wagner asked her countless questions about her understanding of Tuesday’s proceedings, Geyser nodded fervently and only answered “yes sir.”

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services — the agency tasked with drawing up Geyser’s conditional release plan — opposed her initial release and filed a petition to revoke in March based on details it says came up during talks with Geyser about next steps.

Geyser had been reading a crime novel called “Rent Boy,” about a young man who gets caught up in the black market sale of human organs. A conditional release program supervisor testified, and Assistant District Attorney Abbey Nickolie concurred, that the book’s themes showed Geyser was not ready for the next step in her rehabilitation.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren ultimately was not swayed by the book’s themes or Geyser’s communications with a man who expressed sexual interest in her crime.

In upholding his decision to grant her conditional release in March, Bohren said Geyser needed space to grow up if she had any hope of being rehabilitated and said she did not appear to be a safety risk.

Nickolie reminded reporters of the March petition at a news conference after Geyser’s arrest in Illinois and said she was concerned about community safety if Geyser could not follow a “simple condition” of her release.

In November, the corrections department was alerted around 9:30 p.m. that Geyser’s ankle monitor was malfunctioning, according to a Madison Police incident report. They didn’t make contact with the group home for two hours, the window during which officials say she bought a bus ticket out of the state.

Madison Police weren’t notified and only learned of her disappearance at 8 a.m. the next day when someone from the group home reported her missing. No one alerted Leutner, Geyser’s victim, of the escape for nearly 12 hours, according to the Waukesha County District Attorney’s office.

Posen Police Chief William Alexander told Courthouse News that Geyser and Mecca had first given arresting officers fake names, apparently to avoid detection. Geyser told police she didn’t want to give her real name because she had done something “really bad.”

The officer told her that it “couldn’t be that bad.” He can be heard on body cam footage posted to the Posen Police Facebook page saying, “You’re not wanted for murder, right?” After giving her real name, she instructed officers to “just Google it.”

When Bohren approved Geyser’s conditional release in January, the hearing lasted more than 6 hours. On Tuesday, it took less than one to send her back where she started.

“Good luck to you, Miss Geyser,” Wagner said in closing.

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