‘Slender Man’ attacker Morgan Geyser who vanished after cutting off GPS monitor found in Illinois

MADISON, WISCONSIN: Morgan Geyser, the girl at the center of the infamous “Slender Man” stabbing in 2014, has finally been found after she vanished from her group home and cut off her monitoring bracelet, cops said.

The 23-year-old was last spotted around 8 pm Saturday, November 22, wandering through a residential pocket on the west side of Madison, Wisconsin, with an unidentified adult acquaintance in tow, according to police. 

Wisconsin officials announced late on Sunday night that she had been captured and detained in the state of Illinois.

The chilling 'Slender Man' case that started it all

Back in 2014, Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier (both just 12 at the time) lured their sixth-grade classmate, Payton Leutner, into a wooded park in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Their motive was to impress a fictional internet boogeyman known as “Slender Man.”

The pair stabbed Leutner 19 times. Miraculously, the 12-year-old survived. She crawled out of the woods until a passing bicyclist spotted her and got help.

Leutner later told ABC that the trio “spent a lot of time together,” but she admitted Geyser constantly talked about Slender Man and that the creepy character absolutely terrified her.

The night of the attack had started innocently enough. Leutner was at Geyser’s home for a slumber party to celebrate her birthday.  

The grisly confession

Geyser’s later testimony revealed just how calculated the horrifying attack was. In October 2017, she cried as she recounted the incident to Judge Michael Bohren.

"Anissa and I took [Leutner] in the forest and said that we were going to play hide-and-seek," Geyser said. "Anissa said that she couldn't do it and that I had to."

Bohren asked how Geyser carried out the attack. "I tackled her. I stabbed her," she replied.

"Where?" Bohren asked. "Everywhere," Geyser said. When asked how many times? "19."

Geyser said that after the brutal stabbing, "Anissa told her to lie down so she wouldn't lose blood so quickly, and told her to be quiet, and we left."

Weier’s attorneys would later argue she truly believed Slender Man would harm her own family if she didn’t go through with the attack.

Years in treatment and a sudden disappearance

Geyser pleaded guilty at age 15 to attempted first-degree murder and was placed in a mental institution instead of prison time under a deal with prosecutors. At her 2018 sentencing, she delivered a tearful apology to Leutner and her family. “I never meant this to happen. I hope that she is doing well," she said.

She spent nearly seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute before a judge ordered her eligible for release this January, according to the Associated Press.

But in August, a facility in Sun Prairie refused to take her due to “negative publicity,” WMTV reported. Madison police later confirmed she was settled in a group home on the same street where she was last seen Saturday night.

Her attorney, Tony Cotton, practically begged her to turn herself in during a statement released Sunday. “We worked too hard to secure her freedom for her to continue on this path,” he warned. In a video posted to social media, Cotton said it was unclear how she managed to escape or who may have helped her in the 12 hours she was missing.

Her original co-defendant, Anissa Weier, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide due to mental illness and was committed to a mental hospital for 25 years. She was released in 2021 but under strict conditions, including living with her father and wearing a GPS monitor.