Slender Man Attacker Is Found After Manhunt

By Jordan King and Shane CroucherShareNewsweek is a Trust Project member

Morgan Geyser, one of the teens convicted in the infamous "Slender Man" stabbing case, has been found after staff at her group home in Wisconsin said she had removed a GPS monitoring tag from her ankle and gone missing.

The Madison Police Department said Geyser had been taken into custody in Illinois at around 10:34 p.m. on Sunday night.

She had been reported missing on Sunday morning, after Department of Corrections received an alert that Geyser’s GPS monitoring bracelet was malfunctioning on Saturday night, the Madison Police Department said in a statement.

Officers had released a photo of her, taken from a CCTV camera, from this past month, telling members of the public to call 911 if they spotted her.

Geyser was found at a Thornton's truck stop with another person in Posen, where the pair had taken a bus to, Posen Police told ABC News.

Morgan Geyser appears in a Waukesha County courtroom Jan. 9, 2025, in Waukesha, Wis.

...

Before she was found, Geyser’s mother, Angie Geyser, told the outlet: "If you see Morgan, please call the police. Morgan, if you can see this, we love you and just want to know you are safe."

The case dates back to May 2014 when Geyser and her best friend Anissa Weier invited classmate Payton Leutner to a sleepover and lured her into the woods. Weier was instructed by Geyser to "go berserk" by stabbing Leutner, who ended up surviving the attack.

Both Geyser and Weier later told investigators that they carried out the stabbing to gain favor as servants of online horror character Slender Man. They believed their families would be harmed if they did not go ahead with the violence, they said.

Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2018 and was committed to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute due to mental illness.

She filed multiple petitions for release after nearly seven years at the psychiatric facility, several of which were rejected.

But, in January this year, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren ruled in her favor, concluding she had fully utilized available treatment at the facility, despite ruling in April 2024 that she still posed a public safety risk.

The judge directed the state Department of Health Services to develop a supervised transition plan for her placement in a group home. Weier, who pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide, was released from psychiatric care in 2021, now lives with her father under court-ordered GPS monitoring.

Newsweek has contacted the MPD and Posen Police, via email and online contact form, outside normal working hours, for comment.

This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.

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