One of the perpetrators of the so-called Slender Man stabbing was found in Illinois Sunday after escaping a group home the day prior.
Morgan Geyer’s brief disappearance reignited nationwide interest in the 2014 case, which centered around the fictional character Slender Man.
Here’s what we know.
Who is Morgan Geyser?
Geyser, who is now 23, was charged with attempted homicide at age 12 after stabbing her friend, Payton Leutner, and leaving her for dead in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She’s one of two perpetrators of the stabbing, which she and co-defendant Anissa Weier claimed was done to appease Slender Man.
Both women were found not guilty by reason of mental defect in 2017. Geyser was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia after her arrest, and was sentenced to 40 years of mental confinement.
She was granted conditional release earlier this year after a judge said he saw no risk to the public or to her, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Before that, she had unsuccessfully petitioned for conditional release three times.
Geyser was placed in a group home in October.
How did Morgan Geyser escape? Has she been captured?
Geyser was last seen with an adult acquaintance near Kroncke Drive in Madison, Wisconsin, at about 8 p.m. local time on Nov. 22, according to the Madison Police Department.
Later that night, the Department of Corrections received an alert that Geyser’s GPS monitoring bracelet was malfunctioning. After officials contacted the group home she was staying at, the facility’s staff confirmed her GPS bracelet had been removed.
By 8 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 23, the Madison police were notified of Geyser’s disappearance and issued an alert to the public.
The Posen Police Department, located south of downtown Chicago near the Indiana border, said Geyser was discovered at Thorton’s Truck Stop at around 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 23, according to the Journal Sentinel. Police were called to the truck stop for a report of a male and female loitering behind the building.
Police say Geyser repeatedly refused to provide her real name and initially gave a false one, telling the officers she didn’t want to give her name because she’d “done something really bad.”
Police confirmed it was Geyser and took her into custody, along with the man she was with. Neither resisted arrest, police said.
What happened in the Slender Man killing case?
After a sleepover on May 31, 2014, Geyser and Weier lured Leutner into the woods and stabbed her 19 times with a 5-inch blade, the Journal Sentinel reported.
Leutner survived the attack after crawling to a trail, where she was found by a passing bicyclist.
Geyser and Weier were found by police on the side of the road. They told investigators they were on their way to live with the fictional Slender Man character. They were charged with attempted murder the next day.
Where is Payton Leutner now?
Geyser’s initially proposed group home was found to be located only eight miles from Leutner’s residence, which had not been shared with all parties before being presented in court, according to the Journal Sentinel. Leutner’s mother said the news caused “significant distress for our family.”
Geyser was eventually placed in a group home this fall, though the location has not been shared publicly.
In a 2019 interview on ABC’s “20/20” program, Leutner said she didn’t fear for Geyser’s and Weier’s eventual releases from Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh.
“If they ever come near me, they’re going right back in,” Leutner said, adding she sleeps with a pair of broken scissors under a pillow next to her “just in case.”
Leutner said at the time that she would likely thank Geyser if she had a chance to speak to her, saying she planned to go to college to pursue a career in the medical field.
“I wouldn’t think that someone who went through what I did would ever say that,” she said. “But that’s truly how I feel. Without the whole situation, I wouldn’t be who I am.”
Leutner’s family said in a statement they were aware of Geyser’s disappearance and were safe as they continued to work closely with local law enforcement.
“The family would like to thank all of the law enforcement entities involved in the efforts to apprehend Morgan,” the statement read. “The Leutner family also wish to thank the outpouring of support from family, friends and well-wishers who have contacted them during this difficult time.”
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What is Slender Man?
Slender Man is a fictional bogeyman-like character that resembles a skinny, tall man in a suit who has no face.
The character was created on an internet forum website in 2009, when a man named Eric Knudsen posted several black and white photographs of children playing with a long-limbed figure in the background, according to the University of California, Berkeley.
Slender Man became more of a household name around 2013, when a viral, independently-developed game called “Slender: The Eight Pages” was released by Mark J. Hadley. The game centers around an unknown main character who is stalked through the woods by Slender Man while trying to collect eight pages from various locations.
False but realistic stories about Slender Man targeting or attacking children began to spread online after that, and sometimes, children were the ones creating such stories, Lynne McNeill, an associate professor of folklore at Utah State University, told UC Berkeley’s California Magazine.
Over time, the fictional aspects of the story of Slender Man became blurred with reality for some people, Jeffrey Tolbert, assistant professor of American studies and folklore at Penn State University, said in a 2021 research article.
The 2014 stabbing heightened public awareness about the Slender Man character.
CONTRIBUTING: Bruce Vielmetti, Anna Kleiber, Jim Riccioli, Christopher Kuhagen, Melanie Eversley
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: ‘Slender Man’ stabbing perpetrator found in Illinois. Who is Morgan Geyser?
Reporting by Hannah Hudnall and Melina Khan, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
