The search for a missing Wisconsin woman who nearly killed her sixth-grade classmate more than a decade ago to impress the fictional horror character Slender Man ended Sunday night, when authorities found her sleeping outside an Illinois truck stop.
Morgan Geyser, 23, was located at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois, early Monday, police said. Posen lies about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Chicago and roughly 170 miles (274 kilometers) south of Madison.
On Sunday, the Madison Police Department reported that Geyser had removed her electronic monitoring bracelet and left her group home on the city’s west side. She was last seen around 8 p.m. on Saturday with an adult acquaintance, the department said.
According to Posen police, Geyser was found with a 42-year-old man who was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing and obstructing identification. He has since been released from custody. Geyser was expected to appear in Cook County court on Tuesday morning for an extradition hearing to return her to Wisconsin.
Geyser’s attorney, Tony Cotton, previously said he did not know what had happened to his client. In an email Monday morning, he said he had not yet spoken with her and did not know the circumstances of her departure from the group home.
Found sleeping on the sidewalk
In a statement posted to Facebook on Monday, Posen police said officers responded to a call about a man and woman loitering behind the truck stop. When they arrived, officers found Geyser and the man asleep on the sidewalk.
Police said Geyser initially provided a false name and repeatedly refused to identify herself. She eventually admitted she did not want to reveal who she was because she had “done something really bad” and suggested officers could “just Google” her. Both she and the man were taken into custody without incident.
State officials had opposed her release
Geyser pleaded guilty in 2017 to being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the 2014 stabbing of her classmate, Payton Leutner. She argued she was not responsible because of mental illness. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren ordered her committed to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years, and she was sent to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute.
Under Wisconsin law, people committed after criminal proceedings can request release every six months. Geyser petitioned four times before Bohren approved her release in January. Prosecutors urged him to deny it, arguing she could not be trusted.
The state Department of Health Services, which operates Winnebago and is responsible for her care, attempted to reverse Bohren’s decision in March. Officials told the judge that Geyser had not disclosed to her treatment team that she had read Rent Boy, a novel involving murder and black-market organ sales. They also alleged she had been corresponding with a man who collects “murderabilia,” sending him a drawing of a decapitated body and a postcard expressing a desire to be intimate with him.
Cotton defended her, saying she only read materials permitted by staff and had cut off contact with the man last year after he had visited her three times.
“Morgan is not more dangerous today,” Cotton said at a March hearing.
The judge ultimately concluded that Geyser had not tried to conceal anything. After a final release plan was approved in September, she was discharged and placed in the Madison group home.
Questions over notification after disappearance
The Madison Police Department said Sunday it was not informed that Geyser was missing until nearly 12 hours after she left the group home. The state Department of Corrections received an alert Saturday night that her ankle monitor had malfunctioned. About two hours later, the department contacted the group home and was told she was gone and had removed the device, Madison police said.
Just after midnight, the Department of Corrections issued an apprehension request. According to Madison police, they did not learn she was missing until a staff member from the group home called the department the next morning.
In response to the police department’s remarks, the state Department of Health Services — which contracts with Corrections to supervise offenders receiving mental health treatment in facilities like Winnebago — said in an email that an apprehension request functions as an arrest warrant. Once it is issued, the department noted, all law enforcement agencies in the state are officially notified that the person must be taken into custody.
Attack tied to Slender Man lore
Authorities say that in 2014, Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier, both 12 at the time, lured their classmate Payton Leutner to a suburban Milwaukee park after a sleepover. Geyser then stabbed Leutner more than a dozen times while Weier encouraged her. Leutner survived but was critically injured.
The girls later told investigators they attacked Leutner to gain favor with Slender Man, a fictional horror figure, and said they feared he would harm their families if they did not obey him.
Slender Man was created online by Eric Knudson in 9 as a mysterious, faceless figure digitally inserted into images of children playing. The character evolved into a well-known internet myth, appearing in video games, online stories and a 2018 film.
Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and, like Geyser, was found not guilty by reason of mental disease. She was also committed to the psychiatric facility and granted release in 2021.
Steve Lyons, spokesperson for the Leutner family, said in a statement Sunday that Payton Leutner is safe. Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese said at a Monday news conference that the family was not notified Geyser was missing until the victim-witness coordinator from her office contacted them Sunday morning.
