A Wisconsin woman who attempted murder as a child to please the fictional “Slender Man” character has escaped supervised care and fled to Illinois, exposing dangerous gaps in our mental health monitoring system that put innocent communities at risk.
Story Snapshot
Morgan Geyser, who stabbed a classmate 19 times in 2014, escaped from a Wisconsin group home and was captured in Illinois.
Her 42-year-old friend was charged with obstruction for helping Geyser flee and providing a false identity to the police.
The monitoring system failed catastrophically – authorities didn’t know she was missing for 12 hours after her ankle bracelet was removed.
Geyser will likely return to Winnebago Mental Health Institute following extradition proceedings.
Dangerous Criminal Escapes Supervised Care
Morgan Geyser, now an adult who brutally stabbed a 12-year-old classmate 19 times in 2014, successfully escaped from a Madison, Wisconsin, group home on Saturday evening. Geyser had been living in supervised care after her release earlier this year from Winnebago Mental Health Institute, where she spent seven years following her conviction for attempted first-degree intentional homicide. The escape raises serious questions about Wisconsin’s ability to monitor dangerous individuals who claim mental illness as a defense for violent crimes.
CHARGED: The friend of the woman who stabbed a classmate to please the fictional character Slender Man has been charged with obstruction.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections received an alert Saturday night that Geyser’s ankle monitor had malfunctioned, but authorities didn’t discover she was actually missing until nearly 12 hours later. This massive oversight allowed Geyser and her 42-year-old accomplice to travel by bus from Madison to Chicago, then walk 20 miles south to Posen, Illinois—a journey of approximately 170 miles total. The delayed response demonstrates a shocking failure in Wisconsin’s supervision protocols for violent offenders released on mental health grounds.
Illinois Police Capture Fugitive Pair
Posen police arrested both women Sunday night at a Thorntons truck stop after responding to reports of loitering. Officers found them sleeping on the sidewalk behind the building. Geyser initially provided false identification and told officers she had “done something really bad,” suggesting they could “just Google” her name. Her friend was charged with obstruction for providing false identity to the police, but was released Monday morning after posting bond.
Brutal 2014 Attack Shocked Nation
Geyser and accomplice Anissa Weier lured victim Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park in 2014 following a sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier encouraged the attack. The girls, all 12 years old at the time, claimed they committed the horrific crime to become servants of “Slender Man,” a fictional internet horror character. Leutner barely survived the brutal assault. Both attackers were arrested while walking on Interstate 94, planning to reach what they believed was Slender Man’s mansion in northern Wisconsin.
Justice System Shows Dangerous Leniency
Despite the severity of her crime, Geyser received psychiatric treatment rather than traditional incarceration after claiming mental illness. She was committed to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years in 2018, but gained supervised release after just seven years when three experts testified about her supposed progress. Her accomplice, Weier, received 25 years but was released in 2021 after agreeing to GPS monitoring and living with her father. This case demonstrates how mental health defenses can result in dramatically reduced consequences for violent criminals, potentially endangering public safety.
