Where is Morgan Geyser? Slender Man convict in mental hospital as Anissa Weier released
Milwaukee teen Anissa Weier was sentenced to 25 years in a mental health facility in 2017, for the 2014 stabbing of a classmate. Weier's accomplice in the crime was a friend called Morgan Geyser, who was also a 12-year-old like Weier when they planned and stabbed classmate Payton Leutner in the nearby woods, later telling authorities that the attempted murder was supposed to keep the legend-horror character Slender Man from killing their families.
As of July 1, a judge has ordered the release of Weier from the Winnebago Mental Health Facility, where she was supposed to spend the next two decades at least. Arguing that she had exhausted all her treatment options at the Winnebago and was fit to rejoin society, Weier promised to never allow herself “become a weapon again.” She has to spend just another 60 days at the facility until officials draw up a conditional release plan, while Geyser's appeals to have her conviction overturned keep getting denied.
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Where is Morgan Geyser now?
At 19, Geyser is still at the unnamed mental hospital where she was sentenced 40 years after she pled guilty to the attempted first-degree murder of Leutner. Geyser had reportedly pled guilty to the crime to avoid prison, but she was ultimately found not guilty on grounds of insanity. Geyser was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, and following her 2017 conviction, her attorneys have argued that she should have been tried in juvenile court as she was 12 at the time of the stabbing.
On September 11, 2020, her defense team appealed to the Supreme Court, to toss out Geryser's conviction in adult court. This came after Wisconsin’s 2nd District Court of Appeals had denied Geyser's appeal to have her conviction overruled, twice by then. Geyser's attorney Matthew Pinix had claimed at the time that his client should have been charged with attempted second-degree intentional homicide, which would have sent the case to juvenile court.
"Morgan's fight is not over," Pinix had said, adding: "This case is definitely one that the Wisconsin Supreme Court should decide." Arguing that the stabbing was out of self-defense due to the Slender Man threat, and dubbed Geyser's statement invalid as she was not capable of "intelligent, knowing and voluntary" agreement to talk with detectives. The Appeals court had denied Geyser's pleas on the grounds that even if an error of the sort had happened, "such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt due to the additional, unchallenged and overwhelming evidence in this case."
Who is Morgan Geyser?
On May 31, 2014, three pre-teens — Geyser, Weier, and Leutner, woke up from a sleepover to celebrate Geyser's 12th birthday. The girls then went to a local Waukesha park, where Geyser and Weier stabbed Leutner 19 times and left her for dead. The 12-year-old victim however managed to crawl her way out of the woods and was spotted by the side of the road by a passing bicyclist. Leutner survived, but it's been reported that two of the stab words were millimeters from her arteries. Shortly after she was found, cops found Geyser and Weier walking along the roads, claiming they were on their way to live with Slender Man.
Geyser and Weier were arrested immediately and charged as adults the next day. The girls had confessed to the crime too, claiming they were terrified of Slender Man killing their families if they didn't murder Leutner. The story has become sensational in the years, because of the brutal nature of the crime from such young children. Having become the topic of countless documentary flicks and TV shorts, the Slender Man Stabbing continues to be one of the most notorious incidents. Geyser was given the full sentence prosecutors sought for her when she was 15 and had pleaded guilty to the crime. Breaking down in court, Geyser had addressed Leutner and her family, saying: "I never meant this to happen. And I hope that she's doing well."
During the sentencing hearing, three years after the heinous attack on Leutner, professional opinions on Geyser's mental health and treatment needed were still conflicting. While her defense team tried to move her to an adolescent health facility, Judge Michael Bohren denied it, saying: "What we can't forget is this was an attempted murder."