Nov. 24 (UPI) — Police in Illinois said they captured Morgan Geyser, one of the two people who pleaded guilty to stabbing a friend to appease an imaginary creature called Slender Man, 165 miles from the Wisconsin group home where she was staying.
Geyser, 23, allegedly cut off her monitoring bracelet Saturday night before leaving the residence in Madison and meeting up with an acquaintance.
In an incident report, Madison police said the Department of Corrections received an alert around 9:30 p.m. Saturday that Geyser’s GPS monitoring bracelet was malfunctioning. Around 11:35 p.m., group home staff informed DOC that Geyser was not at the home and she had removed her GPS bracelet.
On Sunday night, police in Posen, Ill., a suburb south of Chicago, told ABC News that law enforcement officials took her into custody. Madison police confirmed her capture to CNN.
Madison police said they received confirmation at 10:34 p.m. Sunday that Geyser had been taken into custody in Illinois.
The Posen police said officers found Geyser at a truck stop with another person, identified as a 42-year-old man, who was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing and obstructing identification, WBBM-TV in Chicago reported.
Geyser is scheduled for an extradition hearing on Tuesday in Chicago. She is not facing any charges in Illinois.
Geyser and the friend were found at a truck after police received reports of two people loitering behind the building. They were sleeping on the sidewalk.
Initially, Geyser gave police a false name. She then told police she didn’t want to give her name because she had “done something really bad,” and officers could “just Google” her.
The friend told WBBM-TV she didn’t want Geyser to be alone after Geyser left the group.
They took a bus and then walked to the truck stop.
Geyser and Anissa Weier pleaded guilty to the 2014 stabbing of their friend, Payton Leutner, when all three girls were 12. Geyser and Weier lured Leutner into the woods where they stabbed her 19 times. They told police a creature known as Slender Man threatened their lives and the lives of their families if they didn’t kill Leutner, who survived the attack.
Geyser and Weier were charged with attempted second-degree murder in 2017 but were found not guilty by reason of mental defect.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren committed them to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years.
Psychiatrists diagnosed Geyser with schizophrenia and she was released to a group home this year.
A spokesperson for the Leutner family released a statement saying they were aware of Geyser’s disappearance.
“Payton and her family are safe and are working closely with local law enforcement to ensure their continued safety,” a statement said.
“The family would like to thank all of the law enforcement entities involved in the efforts to apprehend Morgan.”
