Morgan Geyser, the now-22-year-old who was committed to a Wisconsin psychiatric facility following the stabbing of her best friend in 2014, is set to be granted conditional release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, where she has spent the past seven years.
In 2017, Geyser confessed to stabbing her friend Payton Leutner in 2014 after luring her into the woods in an attempt to impress the fictional supernatural character Slender Man. Geyser’s co-defendant, Anissa Weir, was convicted of the same crime and released from the same psychiatric facility in 2021. At the time of the attack, all three girls were just 12 years old.
Geyser had previously been sentenced to 40 years in the facility, the maximum sentence allowed, while Weir had been sentenced to 25 years from the date of the crime.
Geyser initially sought conditional release back in 2022, arguing that she was no longer a risk to the public. But as recently as April 2024, a judge ruled that she remained a danger to the public and could not be released. Judge Michael Bohren explained that Geyser’s credibility was in question due to the changes in her story over the years regarding her motive for the attack, and “until that credibility is resolved, the risk [to the public] is high.”
However, in January, Judge Bohren ordered Geyser’s release after experts testified that she had made progress during her time at the facility. “She’s done what she’s supposed to do,” said Bohren. “She appears to have a good attitude.”
Geyser’s freedom momentarily hung in the balance after the psychiatric facility discovered her communications with a man outside the facility, as well as reading material she had accessed during her treatment. According to Deputy District Attorney Abbey Nickolie, the material she was reading had “themes of sexual sadism and murder and the sale of human organs on the black market.” Geyser’s lawyers pointed out that everything she was reading had already been vetted by authorities.
The ‘Slender Man’ myth began life as a meme posted on the Something Awful forums in 2009 as part of a Photoshop contest. As a result, there is no single canonical depiction of the character, although he is usually depicted as an unnaturally tall humanoid with zero facial features, dressed in a black suit.
The meme, which would have otherwise remained an exclusively online phenomenon, gained international recognition following the 2014 stabbing of Leutner. Geyser and Weir, who had developed an obsession with the figure, claimed that they were afraid Slender Man would kill their families if they did not kill Leutner.
Despite being stabbed 19 times and suffering life-threatening injuries, Leutner survived, telling ABC in 2019, “I’ve come to accept all of the scars that I have. It’s just a part of me,” She continued, “I don’t think much of them. They will probably go away and fade eventually.”
