A Wisconsin woman who stabbed a classmate nearly to death to please online horror character Slender Man will be released from a psychiatric hospital and continue her rehabilitation in a group home, a judge has ruled.
Morgan Geyser has spent almost seven years at Winnebago Mental Health Institute after she was sentenced in 2018 in the death of her sixth-grade classmate Payton Leutner.
In 2014, Geyser and Anissa Weier lured Leutner into a wooded park in a Milwaukee suburb. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier urged her on, according to investigators. Leutner survived after she crawled out of the woods to a path where a passing bicyclist found her.
Morgan Geyser appears in a Waukesha County courtroom Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Waukesha, Wis.
Morry Gash / The Associated Press
Both Weier and Geyser told detectives they felt they had to kill Leutner to become Slender Man’s “proxies,” or servants, and protect their families from him. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.
Geyser, who pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, was sentenced to 40 years in a mental hospital while Weier, who pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional homicide, was sentenced to 25.
Weier, however, was granted release in 2021 and was given permission to live with her father and ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
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Geyser, now 22 years old, has petitioned Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren — who committed her — for release four times since June 2022. While she withdrew her first two petitions, Bohren denied her third request in April 2024, saying she was still a threat to the public.
Her fourth petition, filed in October, secured her release from the psychiatric facility, and Bohren decided Thursday that she has maximized her treatment options at the facility and is no longer a safety risk. He ordered the state Department of Health Services to set up a plan to house her in a group home and supervise her for his consideration at a hearing within 60 days.
“She’s done what she’s supposed to do,” Bohren told the court, calling Geyser’s crime a “brutal, terrible offence.
“She appears to have a good attitude.”
Three psychologists who have been working with Geyser since she was committed to the institute testified at Thursday’s hearing that she’s made impressive progress in just the last six months and should be released.
Dr. Brooke Lundbohm testified that Winnebago staff weaned Geyser off her anti-psychotic medications by early 2023 and she’s suffered no symptoms since then.
Dr. Deborah Collins said Geyser is always at risk of reoffending simply because she almost killed someone but she has worked on her coping skills, improved her emotional control and retreats into fantasy less frequently. Collins added that Geyser told her that she hates what she did to Leutner and can’t forgive herself.
Morgan Geyser appears in a Waukesha County courtroom Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Waukesha, Wis.
Morry Gash / The Associated Press
Dr. Ken Robbins told the judge that she could become dangerous if she remained confined at Winnebago and lost hope.
“The longer she’s there, at this point, the harder it’s going to be to reintegrate,” Robbins said.
Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz argued that Geyser couldn’t be trusted, noting that she claimed during evaluations last year that she faked her delusions about Slender Man and actually attacked Leutner as a way of escaping her abusive father. He hinted that was a ploy to make the release more likely.
The judge shrugged that off, saying it’s not unusual for mental illness diagnoses to evolve.
— With files from The Associated Press
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