‘Slender Man’ Attacker Cuts Ankle Monitor, Flees Group Home to Stay With New Friend — Caught at Truck Stop

Morgan Geyser, the woman involved in the widely publicized 2014 "Slender Man" stabbing, removed her ankle monitor and left the Wisconsin group home where she had been placed. Illinois police found her the next night crouched against a wall at a truck stop more than 165 miles away, huddled beside a 43-year-old companion identified as Chad Mecca (who prefers the name "Charly").

Officers say Geyser and Mecca had taken a Greyhound bus from Wisconsin and were carrying a backpack and a pink journal labeled "homeless couple's guidebook." Both declined to fully identify themselves to police; Geyser told officers she had done "something really wrong" and suggested they could "just Google" her name.

Legal status and next steps

At an extradition hearing, Geyser waived extradition and was ordered held in Cook County without bail. Wisconsin authorities have 30 days to take her back to the state. Waukesha County prosecutors say they will consider filing a petition to revoke her conditional release; Dane County prosecutors said they had not yet received any referral related to the arrest.

Case background

In May 2014, when Geyser was 12, she and a friend attacked a sixth-grade classmate, Payton Leutner, in a suburban Milwaukee park. Prosecutors say the assault—allegedly intended to appease a fictional character known as "Slender Man"—left Leutner stabbed repeatedly; the criminal complaint said the knife struck Leutner as many as 19 times and missed an artery near her heart by about one millimeter. Leutner survived and the attackers were arrested hours later.

Geyser's attorneys later presented expert testimony that she had suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the assault. In 2017 she entered a plea agreement that committed her to long-term psychiatric treatment rather than prison. She spent nearly seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute and was granted conditional release earlier this year.

Why she left and what officers found

Police reports and body-camera footage indicate Geyser left the group home after tampering with and removing her monitoring bracelet. She told officers she had met Mecca at a Wisconsin church months earlier and was frightened by visitation rules that limited their contact; she repeatedly pleaded with officers not to be separated from Mecca, asking to at least be allowed to say goodbye.

Officers found the pink notebook during a search. Mecca was cited for criminal trespass and obstructing identification and later released on a citation; he is due in court on Jan. 15. Geyser faces extradition and a possible petition to revoke her conditional release.

Privacy and public-safety concerns

State health and corrections officials said they cannot comment on Geyser's treatment or supervision because of patient-privacy rules and contractual limitations when supervision is performed under health-services agreements. Her conditional-release plan is sealed, though court filings showed officials had difficulty finding a placement because of the publicity surrounding the case.

This episode has renewed debate about how people released from psychiatric commitments are supervised and how communities balance public safety with rehabilitation and reintegration. Authorities must now decide whether to return Geyser to institutional care, pursue revocation of her release, or take other steps in light of the recent escape and arrest.