Judge agrees to release ‘Slender Man’ stabber from mental health facility despite ‘red flags’
A Wisconsin judge has agreed to release “Slender Man” stabber Morgan Geyser from a psychiatric hospital despite desperate last-minute efforts by health officials to keep her committed.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren on Thursday signed off on releasing the 22-year-old from Winnebago Mental Health Institute, nearly 11 years after she almost killed a classmate in a twisted attack to please the creepy “Slender Man” horror character.
The judge initially agreed in January to release Geyser from the facility — but state health officials requested last week to keep her committed over “red flags” in her behavior.
They included her keeping secret from her health team that she’d read “Rent Boy,” a novel about murder and selling organs on the black market.
Geyser had also been communicating with a man who collects murder memorabilia — and sent him her own sketch of a decapitated body with a postcard claiming she wanted to be intimate with him, health officials said.
“The state has real concerns these things are, frankly, just red flags at this point,” Waukesha County Deputy District Attorney Abbey Nickolie said during a hearing Thursday.
Geyser’s attorney, Tony Cotton, argued Geyser hadn’t done anything wrong, calling the state’s request to keep her in the hospital a “hit job.”
He argued that Geyser only reads what the psychiatric facility staff allows and that Winnebago staff knew the murder memorabilia collector had visited her three times in 2023.
“Morgan is not more dangerous today,” Cotton told the judge.
Judge Bohren ultimately kept to the initial decision to allow Geyser’s conditional release, saying, “I don’t see the risk to the public.”
Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, were both just 12 when they lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover in May 2014.
Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier cheered her on.
Leutner survived the attack by dragging herself out of the woods and flagging down a bicyclist.
When interviewed by police, Geyser and Weier claimed they attacked their friend to appease the fictional character Slender Man — a tall, slim, faceless creature that was first developed in online forums and was said to lurk in forests traumatizing children.
She pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and was sent to the psychiatric institute because of mental illness.
Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and was also sent to the psychiatric center. She was granted a release in 2021 to live with her father and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
A new hearing for Geyser’s release plan is slated for March 21.
With Post wires
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