Slender Man stabber's release delayed again after new detail surfaces

WAUKESHA, Wis. (CN) — A Waukesha County Circuit Court judge on Monday sent Wisconsin back to the drawing board on the conditional release plan of a woman who said Slender Man told her to stab her best friend 19 times in 2014.

Morgan Geyser, 22, has been incarcerated at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for the last decade for her part in the premeditated stabbing of her friend, Payton Leutner. The bloody attack drew global attention at the time, as Geyser testified that at 12 years old, a murderous horror character instructed her to kill her best friend.

Judge Michael Bohren, who also presided over the original proceedings in 2014, granted Geyser conditional release in January and instructed the state to begin coming up with a plan that would balance the public’s safety with Geyser’s reintegration into society.

In March, Bohren reaffirmed the order after the Wisconsin Department of Health Services petitioned to revoke Geyser’s conditional release on shaky grounds just three days before the court was scheduled to hear the completed release plan. Geyser’s physicians testified again in support of her release, and Bohren chastised the state for bringing no new facts to support its petition to revoke.

On Monday, assistant district attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz informed the court for the first time that the group home where Geyser would move is eight miles away from her victim’s home community where she lives, works and attends graduate school.

This is the second move by the state to delay Geyser’s release.

Though both locations are confidential, it was divulged in court that they are both in Milwaukee County. If placed in the identified group home, Geyser would be on house arrest with GPS monitoring that would prevent her from accidentally coming into contact with Leutner, according to Geyser’s attorney Donna Kuchler.

Szczupakiewicz said he learned last week that the group home and Leutner shared a county but decided not to share this information with the court or the defense.

“I felt this was the best way to handle it,” Szczupakiewicz said after the hearing adjourned. “To put it all in front of the judge and let him decide how to move forward.”

Bohren scolded the state for springing the information onto the court and the defense, calling it “inappropriate” and suggesting it bordered on violating Geyser’s rights.

“This is what some may refer to as a high-profile case, which would mean that the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted to be sure all rights are protected,” Bohren said, appearing agitated. “Not a subterfuge of trickery or an ambush with new issues being raised at the last minute.”

Geyser and her co-defendant, Anissa Weier both pleaded guilty in 2018 to avoid a trial. They were sentenced to 40 years and 25 years, respectively, of confinement in a mental institution. Weier was released to her father’s custody in 2017.

Then 12 years old, Geyser and Weier planned for months to kill Leutner to appease the fictional faceless boogeyman Slender Man, according to court records. They originally planned to smother her in her sleep during a sleepover for Geyser’s birthday, but eventually suggested a walk in the woods where Geyser stabbed her 19 times.

After leaving Leutner bleeding in the woods, the two friends walked to a nearby Walmart to wash away her blood and fill their water bottles. They then began a 300-mile hike to the woods where they believed Slender Man lived. The two later told police they believed Slender Man would kill them and their families if they did not kill Leutner.

Leutner survived the attack but required several invasive surgeries and an extended stay in the hospital before returning to school. Stacy Leutner, the victim’s mother, made a statement at Monday’s hearing pleading with the court to find a different group home for Geyser.

“The Department of Health Services made no attempt to contact our family while drafting Ms. Geyser’s release plan … We must ask what consideration has been given to Payton’s right to safety.”

The state raised red flags after Geyser told the release team that she had read a crime novel called “Rent Boy,” about a fictional young man who gets caught up in the black market sale of human organs.

Nicole Whiteaker, a conditional release program supervisor with Wisconsin Community Services and a member of Geyser’s release team, testified that the themes of the book created a new risk factor that the court had to address before a plan could be drafted.

There are no rules about what Geyser is allowed to read at the Winnebago facility, according to Geyser’s attorney Anthony Cotton. Further, as her therapist testified, it was not new information.

After the hearing, Cotton called the petition a “hit job” by the state.

Geyser will remain in the Winnebago facility for another month until the revised release plan can be reviewed by the court. Bohren, who has ruled on every aspect of this case over the last decade, will retire before the next hearing in June.

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