A woman who stabbed her friend 19 times as a child to appease a fictional internet monster just triggered a nationwide manhunt after cutting off her monitoring bracelet and vanishing from supervised custody.
Story Highlights
- Morgan Geyser, convicted in the infamous 2014 Slender Man stabbing, escaped from her group home in November 2025
- She was recaptured within 24 hours after cutting off her GPS monitoring bracelet
- Geyser and accomplice Anissa Weier were only 12 when they nearly killed their friend to prove their devotion to the fictional Slender Man
- The case sparked national debate about internet influence on vulnerable youth and juvenile justice for severe crimes
The Original Horror That Shocked America
On May 31, 2014, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their 12-year-old friend Payton Leutner into Davids Park in Waukesha, Wisconsin. What happened next defied comprehension. The two girls stabbed Leutner 19 times, leaving her for dead in the woods. Their motive was equally disturbing: they believed they needed to kill to prove the existence of Slender Man, a fictional internet character from horror stories.
Leutner miraculously survived by crawling to a nearby road where a cyclist found her. Meanwhile, police apprehended Geyser and Weier hours later near Interstate 94. The girls showed no remorse initially, telling officers they were heading to Slender Man’s mansion in Wisconsin’s Nicolet National Forest to become his servants.
Mental Health and Legal Consequences
The case took a complex turn when psychiatric evaluations revealed serious mental health issues. Geyser was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic spectrum disorder, while Weier was found to have delusional disorder. Despite their young age, both girls were tried as adults due to the severity of the crime and the calculated nature of their planning.
The legal proceedings stretched from 2014 to 2018. Geyser ultimately received a sentence requiring 40 years of commitment to mental health institutions, while Weier was sentenced to 25 years. The courts emphasized that their release would depend entirely on their mental health progress and risk to public safety. Weier was conditionally released in 2021 under strict supervision.
The Recent Escape and Recapture
On November 22, 2025, more than a decade after the original crime, Geyser cut off her GPS monitoring bracelet and fled from her supervised group home. The escape triggered an immediate nationwide manhunt led by the Madison Police Department. Authorities treated the situation with extreme seriousness given Geyser’s violent history and previous psychiatric diagnoses.
Law enforcement agencies across multiple states joined the search effort. The manhunt lasted less than 24 hours, with Geyser being located and taken back into custody on November 23, 2025. Her brief taste of freedom has now likely resulted in significant consequences for violating the terms of her supervised release, potentially affecting any future consideration for expanded freedoms.
Broader Implications for Justice and Safety
This escape raises serious questions about the supervision of violent offenders with severe mental illness. Geyser’s ability to remove her monitoring device and flee suggests gaps in the oversight system designed to protect public safety. The case also reignites debates about whether individuals capable of such calculated violence at age 12 can ever be truly rehabilitated.
The Slender Man case remains a cautionary tale about the dangerous intersection of internet culture, mental illness, and impressionable youth. It demonstrated how fictional online content could inspire real-world violence among vulnerable individuals. Geyser’s recent escape serves as a stark reminder that the consequences of that 2014 horror continue to reverberate more than a decade later, affecting not just the perpetrators but the entire community that lived through this unprecedented crime.
Sources:
Slender Man stabbing – Wikipedia
Wisconsin Court of Appeals Opinion
