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‘Slender Man’ stabber captured following nationwide manhunt
By Greg Wehner, Christina Shaw, Julia Bonavita
Published November 24, 2025
The nationwide manhunt for Morgan Geyser, the Wisconsin woman convicted in the 2014 "Slender Man" stabbing, has come to an end, authorities announced Sunday night.
The Madison Police Department confirmed Geyser was taken into custody in Illinois at approximately 10:34 p.m., ending the intense search.
Geyser escaped after she cut off her Department of Corrections monitoring bracelet and fled a Madison group home Saturday night, police said.
Madison police announced her escape in a social media post on Sunday.
Morgan Geyser, convicted in the 2014 "Slender Man" stabbing, is seen in recent surveillance footage before her escape from a Madison group home. Police say she cut off her monitoring bracelet Saturday night and remains at large. (Madison Police Department)
Authorities arrested Geyser while responding to a report of a man and a woman loitering behind a building, the Posen Police Department said in a social media post.
When officers located the two individuals sleeping on a sidewalk, the unidentified female refused to provide her name to authorities, police said.
"After continued attempts to identify her, she finally stated that she didn’t want to tell officers who she was because she had ‘done something really bad,’ and suggested that officers could ‘just Google’ her name," the department added.
Her re-capture came nearly 24 hours after she was last seen in the area of Kroncke Drive with another adult, according to the Madison Police Department. Authorities subsequently circulated an image of Geyser taken within the last month, while asking anyone who may have seen her to call 911.
In 2017, Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the violent stabbing of Payton Leutner, but claimed she was not responsible due to her mental illness.
Morgan Geyser appears in a Waukesha County courtroom on Jan. 9, 2025, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
She told investigators she tried to kill Leutner to please the horror character Slender Man and was ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental defect.
Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, were 12 when they lured Leutner into a wooded park during a sleepover in May 2014. Geyser, encouraged by Weier, stabbed Leutner 19 times.
WISCONSIN GIRL, 15, SENTENCED IN SLENDER MAN STABBING CASE
Morgan Geyser is brought into Waukesha County Circuit Court for day 2 of a motion hearing on April 11, 2024. (Scott Ash/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Leutner miraculously survived the attack.
Geyser has been in custody at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for the last seven years.
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She was initially sentenced to 40 years in the psychiatric hospital and was permitted to ask the court to consider her conditional release every six months.
Police told local outlet WMTV that Geyser was staying at a group home in Madison before she disappeared.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/manhunt-launched-convicted-slender-man-stabber-who-cut-off-monitoring-bracelet-fled-facility