Slender Man stabber Morgan Geyser to be released from psychiatric facility despite concerned pleas
Slender Man stabber Morgan Geyser will be released from a psychiatric facility despite new claims she created disturbing drawings and read a graphic book while behind bars.A judge in January had granted the 22-year-old's supervised release, more than a decade after she and a friend lured 12-year-old Payton Leutner into a Wisconsin woodland before stabbing her nearly 20 times and leaving her for dead.Leutner miraculously survived the attack, inspired by the creepy fictional character Slender Man.During a hearing last Thursday, Waukesha County Circuit Court Michael Bohren ruled that new evidence met the probable cause threshold to deny Geyser's release to a facility that would help her transition back into society.The new concerns were brought to the court's attention through a February 27 petition by the Wisconsin Department of Health, which claims Geyser maintained contact with an 'older man' and had read Rent Boy, which contains violent themes.There were also concerns about a violent drawing Geyser made and sent to the man, identified as Jeffery, who then sold it online, prosecutors said.Waukesha County Deputy District Attorney Abbey Nickolie represented the state and called Nicole Whiteaker, a Wisconsin Community Services employee, to testify about these topics.Whiteaker is the conditional release program supervisor that was assigned to Geyser to draft the conditional release plan. Morgan Geyser arrives in court on Thursday to fight for her release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute Pictured: A drawing Nicole Whiteaker claimed Geyser drew that concerned her treatment team and her conditional release team'I asked Ms. Geyser who are the people she's communicating with on the outside, and his name came up,' Whiteaker testified.Jeffery, who first visited her in person in June 2023, sent her a letter after she was granted conditional release in January 2025. Geyser reportedly ripped it up and threw it away, Whiteaker said.'After the team became aware of him, it was during that meeting that Ms. Geyer asked for a no contact order,' Whiteaker said, adding that she found details about Geyser on the man's Facebook that were 'concerning'. 'We found that there were letters and drawing that she had sent him. A postcard,' Whiteaker said. 'And he was selling them.' Kathleen Martinez, a forensic mental health section manager who also testified, said Geyser indicated her desire to be intimate with Jeffery in that postcard.The drawings were described as 'horror' art, which concerned Whiteaker and her team. The pieces of art were labeled with Geyser's name, so potential buyers knew what they were getting, according to Whiteaker's testimony.One of the drawings, shown in court, depicted a unearthly creature with the message 'they crumble as they crawl.'Geyser also 'recalled that [Jeffery] would get sexual gratification from her index offense and I believe there was letters written back and forth' about that, Whiteaker said. Morgan Geyser is seen in a Waukesha County courtroom from January in Waukesha, Wisconsin Nicole Whiteaker, the conditional release program supervisor, testified Thursday arguing that Geyser's release should be revokedGeyser's attorney Tony Cotton tried to downplay his client's contact with Jeffery, saying that she had met him three times in 2023 at the mental health institute. He also pointed out that Geyser was the one who asked for the no contact order, something she requested when she found out that Jeffery was sexually interested in her crime.Cotton got Whiteaker to admit that Geyser hasn't been in contact with Jeffery in the last 18 months to her knowledge.Cotton also claimed that there was no way to know if the drawing being sold by Jeffery were in fact done by Geyser. Whiteaker contradicted this, saying Geyser admitted that she drew some of the art that was being sold on Facebook.Whiteaker said she was concerned about Geyser reading Rent Boy, a book she received through the mail, because 'it was a dark novel that revolved around murder and the selling of body parts on the black market and sexual sadism.'Whiteaker said this concerned her because it related to the 2014 stabbing, and added Geyser wasn't 'receptive' to criticisms her treatment team had about her reading material.She said Geyser also pushed back on the monitoring of what she was reading, which also concerned the conditional release team.Cotton argued that Geyser should be 'rewarded' for being forthcoming about the fact that she was reading 'horror and murder-related books'. He also pointed out the books were not 'prohibited' by the court or the doctors treating her. Geyser, left, stabbed Payton Leutner across her arms, legs and torso, hitting major arteries and severing her diaphragm. Geyser did this while Anissa Weier, right, egged her on Payton Leutner, pictured, miraculously survived the 19 stab wounds she sustained in the attackIn 2014, Geyser stabbed Leutner across her arms, legs and torso, hitting major arteries and severing her diaphragm. Geyser did this while Weier egged her on. Geyser and Weier, who was freed from a mental hospital in 2021 to go live with her father, ordered Leutner lay down while they got help, leaving her for dead before the girl was found by a cyclist.The girls claimed they were motivated by the fictional Slender Man, sparking a moral panic over potential copycat attacks as the character swept the internet.Both Geyser and Weier told detectives they felt they had to kill Leutner to become Slender Man's 'proxies,' or servants, and that the character would kill their families if they didn't follow through.Judge Bohren initially felt Geyser was fit for release based on statements made in January by the three mental health professionals, effectively cutting her 40-year sentence short by over three decades.Dr. Kenneth Robbins, who previously argued for her to be let go, claimed the Geyser no longer has psychosis, symptoms experts who have worked with her generally agree played a major role in the violent assault she committed.Dr. Brooke Lundbohm's treatment team came to the same conclusion. When the judge asked Robbins if she was 'faking' her psychotic symptoms back in 2014 when the stabbing occurred, he quickly responded 'no.' Geyser is pictured with blood on her jacket after stabbing Leutner. She told detectives at the time that she was 'forced to stab her best friend to death' The hearing in January also revealed that Geyser now identifies as a transgender male and uses a breast binder. The change was telegraphed by her short haircut'I think either she was experiencing transient psychotic symptoms, which is to say psychotic symptoms that didn't persist and gradually went away,' Robbins explained. 'Or the intensity of her fantasies based on some of the trauma she had experienced were so intense that she believed them to be true.'The trauma Robbins was referring to was Geyser's claims of sexual abuse by her father, who died in 2023.Geyser's symptoms more closely align with post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and autism, Robbins added.That hearing in January also revealed that Geyser now identifies as a transgender male and uses a breast binder. The change was telegraphed by her short haircut.Her new name was revealed to be Ethan in Thursday's hearing. 'On May 31 of 2024, the ten-year anniversary of the index offense, Ms. Geyser indicated to her treatment staff that she identifies as a transgender male,' Lundbohm said, before clarifying that she was using female pronouns for Geyser 'to be consistent with the collateral records.''In her treatment records, she's now identified with male pronouns and a separate name,' Lundbohm continued.
