Friend of Wisconsin “Slender Man” stabber Morgan Geyser arrested for obstruction after pair captured in Illinois

Morgan Geyser | MGN

The friend of a Wisconsin woman who stabbed a classmate to please the fictional horror character Slender Man has been charged with obstruction after the pair were captured in Illinois, following Morgan Geyser’s escape from a group home in Wisconsin.

Geyser was expected to appear for an extradition hearing in Cook County on Monday after her arrest in Posen, Illinois. Geyser’s friend, a 42-year-old who declined to give their name to CBS News Chicago, was released from custody after she was charged with obstructing identity for initially giving police a false identity.

Posen police confirmed the pair were arrested Sunday night at a Thorntons truck stop at 14840 Western Av., after officers responded to a report of two people loitering behind the building, and found Geyser and her friend sleeping on the sidewalk.

Police said Geyser initially gave police a false name, and after repeated attempts to identify her, she told police she didn’t want to tell them who she was because she had “done something really bad,” and suggested officers could “just Google” her.

After providing her real name, officers confirmed Geyser had fled a group home in WIsconsin.

Her friend, who was released from custody Monday morning after being charged with obstruction, told CBS News Chicago she and Geyser are best friends, and she didn’t want Geyser to be alone after Geyser left the group home in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, so they hopped on a bus to Chicago together, and then walked to Posen, about 20 miles south of Chicago, and 170 miles south of Madison. The two of them stopped walking after Geyser injured her foot.

Before her capture in Illinois, Geyser was last seen around 8 p.m. Saturday.

The Madison Police Department said on Sunday that they weren’t aware Geyser was missing until nearly 12 hours after she left the group home where she was living.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections received an alert Saturday night that Geyser’s ankle monitor had malfunctioned. The department contacted the group home where she lived about two hours later and was told she wasn’t there and had removed the bracelet, Madison police said.

Geyser had been living in the group home after she was released from custody earlier this year from Winnebago Mental Health Institute, a psychiatric hospital where she had spent the last seven years. She was released after three experts testified she had made progress battling mental illness.

The friend who was arrested alongside Geyser on Sunday night said police told her Geyser would be sent back to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute after her extradition hearing.

Geyser’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Geyser and another friend, Anissa Weier, lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.

Geyser and Weier fled after the attack but were arrested as they were walking on Interstate 94. They told investigators they attacked Leutner to earn the right to be Slender Man’s servants and feared he would hurt their families if they didn’t follow through. They had planned to walk to Slender Man’s mansion in northern Wisconsin after the attack, they said.

Leutner barely survived. Geyser ultimately pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2017 but claimed she wasn’t responsible because she was mentally ill. The following year, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren had committed her to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years.

Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon in 2017, but like Geyser, claimed she was mentally ill and not responsible for her actions. She was committed to 25 years in a mental hospital but was granted release in 2021 after agreeing to live with her father and to wear a GPS monitor.