Slender Man Attacker Morgan Geyser Captured After Fleeing Wisconsin Group Home

Morgan Geyser, one of the teens involved in the 2014 Slender Man-inspired stabbing, has been taken back into custody after she cut off her monitoring bracelet and fled a Wisconsin group home.

The Madison Police Department (MPD) announced on Sunday, Nov. 23, that the 22-year-old was located in Illinois, just hours after she was reported missing from the facility where she had been living under court order.

“On Nov. 23, at approximately 10:34 p.m., the MPD received confirmation that Morgan Geyser was taken into custody in the state of Illinois,” the department said in a statement. “There is no longer a need to search for Morgan Geyser at this time.”

According to an earlier MPD release, Geyser removed her Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) GPS monitoring bracelet and left the group home on the evening of Saturday, Nov. 22. She was last seen around 8 p.m. local time on Kroncke Dr., in the company of an adult acquaintance.

At approximately 9:30 p.m., DOC officials were notified that Geyser’s bracelet was “malfunctioning.” Staff at the group home then informed authorities that Geyser had taken off the device and disappeared. The MPD was notified of her absence on Sunday morning and issued a missing person alert.

Geyser had been living in the group home under the supervision of Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services since January, following a court order that allowed her to leave a psychiatric facility where she had been held since the 2014 attack.

In that case, Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12 at the time, lured their classmate Payton Leutner into the woods in their Milwaukee suburb during a sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier encouraged the attack. Leutner survived by crawling to a nearby bike path, where she was discovered and helped by a passerby.

Geyser and Weier later admitted they carried out the stabbing in an effort to please Slender Man, a fictional supernatural figure created online in 2009, whom they believed was real. Both were charged with first-degree intentional homicide and tried as adults. They were ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and sent to psychiatric institutions.

In March, a judge approved Geyser’s supervised release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute to a group home, with conditions that included wearing a monitoring bracelet, according to ABC News. The outlet reported that Geyser was taken into custody on Sunday in Posen, Illinois.