Slender Man fan who tried to kill classmate asks for freedom 10-years after brutal attack
A young woman who attacked a classmate a decade ago has asked to be released from the US mental facility she is being housed in. Morgan Geyser was just 12-year-old when she and Anissa Weier lured Payton Leutner to a park after a sleepover.
Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier encouraged her. Leutner narrowly survived the attack and the girls later confessed to investigators that they wanted to earn the right to serve the fictional Slender Man and feared he would harm their families if they didn't execute the attack.
Morgan Geyser admitted to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, while Anissa Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide. Due to mental health issues, both were sent to a psychiatric institution. Weier was granted release in 2021 to live with her father under the condition of wearing a GPS monitor.
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Geyser, now 22, submitted a petition to Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren on Friday, marking her third request for release in the past two years. Geyser withdrew her first petition two months after filing it in 2022, and Bohren rejected her second request in April this year, stating that she still poses a risk to society.
The latest one-page petition does not provide any arguments for Geyser's release but cites state laws that mandate Bohren to appoint at least one expert within 20 days to assess her and produce a report within 30 days of appointment, Mirror reports.
The petition also asks the judge to schedule a hearing, noting that state law requires him to hold one within 30 days of receiving the examiner's report. The Slender Man character originated in a 2009 image depicting a tall, slim figure with tentacle-like limbs and abilities such as teleportation and mind control.
The character gained global popularity through Creepypasta websites featuring horror stories. Weier and Geyser became fixated on Slender Man and plotted to kill their classmate, Payton Leutner, in an attempt to become "proxies" for the entity they believed was real.
The three girls attended Horning Middle School in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. Leutner initially befriended Geyser, recalling in a 20/20 interview that she approached Geyser after seeing her eat lunch alone. Leutner described her former friend as funny and "a little lonely."