Wisconsin judge refuses to block Slender Man attacker's release from psychiatric hospital

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Thursday refused to block a psychiatric hospital from releasing a woman who stabbed her sixth-grade classmate to please a horror character called Slender Man more than a decade ago after prosecutors alleged she has been quietly reading gory novels and communicating with a man who collects memorabilia from murderers.

Morgan Geyser has spent the last seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren in January ordered her released after state and county health officials completed a community supervision and housing plan.

Bohren was set to review the plan at a Feb. 28 hearing but prosecutors never presented it to him, instead asking him at the hearing to revoke her release.

Deputy District Attorney Abbey Nickolie alleged during a follow-up hearing Thursday that Geyser, now 22, didn’t tell her treatment team that she has been reading novels about murder and the sale of human organs on the black market. She also didn’t inform the treatment team that she has been communicating with a man who collects murder memorabilia, allowing him to visit her and sending him artwork of a “very violent nature,” Nickolie told the judge.

Geyser’s attorney, Tony Cotton, countered that Geyser only reads books the facility makes available to her and hospital officials track all her communications. She told her treatment team about the books and communications when asked, he said, adding that she can’t have violated any conditions of release because conditions haven’t been set.

Bohren said that the revocation request lacked substance and he didn't believe Geyser was trying to intentionally hide anything.

“I don't see the risk to the public,” the judge said.

Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. They left Leutner for dead but she crawled out of the woods and got help from a passing bicyclist. All three girls were 12 years old.

Leutner barely survived her wounds. Geyser and Weier told investigators that they attacked her to earn the right to be Slender Man’s servants and to ensure Slender Man didn’t hurt them or their families.

Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree attempted homicide in 2017 but claimed she wasn’t responsible for her actions because she was mentally ill. Bohren had committed her to the psychiatric hospital for 40 years in 2018.

Geyser has asked the judge for a conditional release four times since June 2022. She withdrew her first two petitions. The judge denied her third request in April 2024, finding that she was still a threat to the public. She filed her latest request in October.

He granted her fourth request in January after three psychologists testified that she’s made progress improving her coping skills and emotional control and doesn’t retreat into fantasy as often. One of the psychologists, Dr. Ken Robbins, warned that Geyser could become dangerous if she remains at Winnebago and loses hope.

Prosecutors countered that Geyser couldn’t be trusted, pointing to how she claimed during evaluations last year that she really attacked Leutner as a way of escaping her abusive father rather than to please Slender Man. They implied she was lying in hopes of increasing the odds she’d be released.

Bohren ultimately found that Geyser had maximized her treatment at Winnebago and to be truly rehabilitated she has to rejoin society.

Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon in 2017, but like Geyser claimed she wasn’t responsible due to mental illness. She was committed to 25 years in a mental hospital but was granted release in 2021 on condition that she live with her father and wear a GPS monitor.