Morgan Geyser, infamously dubbed the ‘Slender Man stabber’, made headlines once again when she boldly instructed officers to “just Google me” following her arrest for removing her ankle monitor and absconding from a group home. This audacious escape triggered a multi-state search over the weekend.
The 23-year-old Wisconsin resident drew national attention back in 2014. At just 12 years old, alongside her friend Anissa Weier, Geyser lured their sixth-grade classmate, Peyton Leutner, into the woods during a sleepover and stabbed her 19 times. Remarkably, Leutner survived the harrowing ordeal. The attack was purportedly carried out to appease Slender Man, a fictional horror figure.
To avoid prison time, Geyser reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in 2018, resulting in her being placed in a psychiatric institution. Despite warnings from prosecutors, she was subsequently released to a group home in July.
On Saturday evening, Geyser made her escape from the Sun Prairie, Wisconsin group home with a 42-year-old man, with whom she is reportedly in a relationship. Authorities reported that the pair took a bus heading south to Illinois.
Geyser was placed in a psychiatric ward in 2018 when she struck a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid prison, and in July she was released into the group home against warnings from prosecutors.
Geyser fled the group home with her older boyfriend around 8pm Saturday, and cops said the pair got a bus south to Illinois.
She was found over 170 miles away from her home at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois, late on Sunday night, and cops said she repeatedly refused to give her name.
When she finally told them her true identity, Greyser allegedly told them to ‘just Google’ her because she had ‘done something really bad.’
Morgan Geyser, a Wisconsin woman known as the ‘Slender Man stabber’, told officers to ‘just Google me’ when she was arrested for cutting off her ankle monitor and fleeing her group home
Geyser captured national headlines in 2014 when she and her friend lured their sixth-grade classmate Peyton Leutner (pictured) into the woods during a sleepover and stabbed her 19 times to appease the fictional ‘Slender Man’ character
Geyser will be hauled back to Wisconsin and will face a judge. She had previously been released to the group home on the condition she be treatment for psychotic spectrum disorder.
She had been in custody since she was arrested aged 12 following the attack on Leutner, in which she and Weier hatched a plot to perform a ritualistic murder for the ‘Slender Man.’
Geyser carried out the stabbing of their friend while Weier cheered on, police said at the time.
Geyser said at the time of the stabbing that she believed Slender Man, a fictional horror character, would kill her family if she didn’t attack her schoolfriend
The sinister duo then abandoned Leutner – leaving her to die – but she miraculously survived. She managed to crawl out of the woods, where a cyclist found her.
The girls told detectives that they had to kill Leutner to become Slender Man’s ‘proxies’, and said they thought the character would kill their families if they did not comply.
They were both charged in adult court with first-degree attempted intentional homicide.
Weier had pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of attempted second-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime, but the jury found her to be not guilty by mental disease or defect in 2017.
Geyser, seen in 2017, was placed in a psychiatric ward in 2018 when she struck a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid prison, and in July she was released into the group home against warnings from prosecutors
Anissa Weier, pictured after the attack, cheered on Geyser as she stabbed their helpless victim
Geyser, who has schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, but as part of her plea deal, was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in 2018.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren, who has since retired, had committed her to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years – a sentence of which she only served about 25 percent.
Bohren went against the wishes of prosecutors in January when he ruled that Geyser could be released and placed in her group home, after three experts testified that she was making progress battling her mental illness.
During the same hearing, Geyser also came out as transgender, but female pronouns have continued to be used for court consistency, Dr Brooke Lundbohm, who psych evaluated Geyser, explained.
At the time, Dr Kenneth Robbins claimed that Geyser no longer had the psychosis symptoms that played a significant role in the violent assault she committed.
Lundbohm’s treatment team came to the same conclusion.
‘I think either she was experiencing transient psychotic symptoms, which is to say psychotic symptoms that didn’t persist and gradually went away,’ Robbins explained.
‘Or the intensity of her fantasies based on some of the trauma she had experienced were so intense that she believed them to be true.’
Geyser, pictured at age 12, stabbed her friend 19 times as a sacrifice to Slender Man
The trauma Robbins referred to was Geyser’s claims of sexual abuse by her father, who died in 2023.
Geyser’s father had also reportedly been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Stacie Leutner told ABC.
But Geyser’s symptoms more closely align with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and autism, Robbins said.
While Bohren agreed to Geyser’s release to a group home – effectively slashing her sentence by about three decades – the plan had to be reworked several times.
The judge approved it in July, but the process to remove Geyser from the secure mental hospital was difficult, as multiple group homes had turned her away.
One plan also would have seen Geyser moved to a home just eight miles from Leutner, sparking outrage from her family.
In March, state health officials argued that Geyser was in no condition to walk free from the institution after evidence emerged of an unsettling correspondence she was having with an ‘older man’ called Jeffrey – including this sketch of a decapitated body and a postcard saying she wanted to be intimate with him
In March, state health officials argued that Geyser was in no condition to walk free from the institution after evidence emerged of an unsettling correspondence she was having with an ‘older man’ called Jeffrey, who sold murder memorabilia.
The man first visited her in June 2023, and in their twisted correspondence, Geyser had sent him her own sketch of a decapitated body and a postcard saying she wanted to be intimate with him.
The drawings were described as ‘horror’ art. Jeffrey was reportedly selling the pieces that Geyser sent him.
The Madison Police Department said Sunday that it was not made aware that Geyser was missing until nearly 12 hours after she left the group home.
Authorities said ‘Jeffrey’ was not the same man that Geyser escaped her group home with over the weekend.
