The nationwide search for Morgan Geyser, the Wisconsin woman involved in the infamous 2014 “Slender Man” stabbing, came to a dramatic end Sunday night.
Authorities confirmed that Geyser was taken into custody in Illinois at around 10:34 p.m., after escaping a Madison group home the night before by cutting off her Department of Corrections monitoring bracelet.
Madison police shared the news on social media, noting that Geyser had last been seen around 8 p.m. with an adult acquaintance and her whereabouts were unknown until her capture.
The 2014 Case
Geyser, now 22, gained notoriety as one of the two girls who lured Payton Leutner, then 12, into the woods during a sleepover and stabbed her 19 times. Miraculously, Leutner survived.
At the time, Geyser claimed she attacked Leutner to please the fictional horror character Slender Man and was ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental defect. She had pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2017 but was placed in a psychiatric hospital instead of prison.
Geyser had been in custody at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for the last seven years, with a 40-year sentence and the possibility of conditional release review every six months.
The Escape
Her brief escape sparked a nationwide manhunt, with police urging the public to contact authorities if they spotted her. The case ended without incident when she was safely apprehended in Illinois.
