Judge to decide in April whether to release woman involved in Slender Man stabbing in Wisconsin
WAUKESHA, Wis. (CBS/AP) -- A judge will hold a hearing in April to determine whether a Wisconsin woman involved in a stabbing inspired by the online horror character Slender Man has again should be released from a mental institution.
In a hearing Tuesday, Jan. 16, in Waukesha County Court, Morgan Geyser, 21, asked Circuit Judge Michael Bohren to grant her conditional release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Geyser made a similar request for conditional release in 2022 but withdrew the petition two months after filing it.
Bohren held a brief hearing on the request Monday. He appointed three psychiatric experts — one on behalf of Geyser, one on behalf of prosecutors, and the third as a court appointee — to examine her and produce reports on her current mental condition by March 1.
He set a hearing for April 10-11 to consider the reports and possibly rule on the release request.
Geyser appeared via video from Winnebago. She softly replied "yes, sir" when Bohren asked her if she was able to see and hear the proceedings, and "no, sir" when he asked if she had any questions.
After a sleepover on May 31, 2014, Geyser and another girl, Anissa Weier, lured a third girl, Payton Leutner, into some woods near a park in Waukesha – a suburb of Milwaukee. All three girls were 12 at the time.
Geyser stabbed Payton repeatedly while Weier egged her on.
Payton suffered 19 stab wounds and barely survived, according to medical staff who treated her.
The girls left Payton for dead, but she crawled onto a bike path and was found by a passerby. Police captured Geyser and Weier later that day as they were walking on Interstate 94 in Waukesha.
Geyser and Weier said they carried out the attack to curry favor with Slender Man, a fictional online horror character typified by spidery limbs and a blank white face.
They told investigators that they stabbed Leutner to earn the right to become Slender Man's servants and protect their families from him.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in a deal with prosecutors, and a judge sent her to the psychiatric institute after determining she had a mental illness.
Geyser's sentence to the facility was 40 years, as handed down by Judge Bohren in February 2018. Her sentence was harsher as she
Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and was also sent to the psychiatric facility after a jury found she was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attack. She was sentenced to 25 years.
A harsher sentence was imposed on Geyser as she had been the one who had actually stabbed Payton.
Weier was granted a conditional release in 2021 to live with her father and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
