November 24, 2025 • 19 mins
23-year-old Morgan Geyser has spent the past decade in a mental facility after stabbing her friend and classmate 19 times at the age of 12. Geyser’s story made international headlines after it was revealed that she and another 6th grader lured and attempted to murder their friend to impress a fictional online character “Slenderman” whom they believed to be real. On Sunday, Geyser was found with a 42-year-old man more than 100 miles away just months after being moved to a group home. Geyser fled the home by cutting off her ankle monitor this weekend, after prosecutors had warned the court earlier this year that she was having “violent conversations” with a man outside the facility.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, folks. It is Monday, November twenty fourth, and
one of the girls convicted in that shocking slender Man
attack a decade ago just fled this weekend. She was
recaptured a short time later, but that's not the point,
and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and
TJ Robes. Prosecutors didn't want her to be in a
(00:25):
position to be able to flee where she was supposed
to be in the first place. This is going to
raise some questions now, because how does she get away? Well,
she quite simply just cut off an ankle monitor and
walked out right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This was not a maximum security facility. She was moved
into a group home to facilitate ultimate release. That was
shocking to me because we are talking about now twenty
three year old Morgan Geyser, But she was twelve years
old at the time of a very violent and extremely
heinous crime where she left a friend and a classmate
(01:01):
to die after stabbing her viciously nineteen times while another
twelve year old watched and egged her on. This made
international headlines and it is shocking to me that she
has the level of freedom she even had to be
able to flee when she did.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, we have to trust the professionals who've been monitoring
her for the past decade. The reason again, if this
was just that, that is shocking, if it was just
twelve year olds involved and what you described. But then
the added part of this or open again it ended
up being a movie was why they said they did it.
It was just bizarre that twelve year old girls got
so caught up in something that they're wont going to
(01:40):
the forest looking for a fictional character.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes, trying to actually impress a fictional character named Slenderman.
And we'll get into all of that because I actually,
even though at the time, obviously this was a big
story that we all covered, you forget what actually it entailed.
And I my jaw drop to find that she was
already in a home and you mentioned the prosecutors. This
all happened in March, so she was sentenced to up
(02:07):
to forty years in a psychiatric institution. That seems appropriate
given her age and given the level of violence in
her crime. But this past March, a judge said that
Geyser could be released from this mental health facility to
a group home because three psychologists testified on her behalf
(02:29):
that she was prepared for supervised released. She was supposed
to wear this monitoring bracelet. This was supposed to be
her kind of in between time when you go to
a group home before you're ultimately released to freedom. She
failed to test, but yes she did. But prosecutors, they
actually tried to stop this in March because they said
(02:50):
that they had evidence that she was having a They
called it a violent communication with a man outside of
this mental health facility. And they say that within the
facility she was reading a book with themes of sexual sadism,
and murder. So they felt like she wasn't ready to
go to a group home.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Then why I would a judge think otherwise.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Because three psychologists said she was, Well, where was the fourth, fifth,
and sixth psychologists?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'm sure you could find somebody else that would say differently,
But if did they work, I didn't see this. Those
three were they ones that had worked with her for
years at this facility.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I believe that was the case.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, I mean he's supposed to listen, right, isn't he
supposed to listen to them? I mean, he's making the
best judgment he can, but he has to depend on
some experts that's why I'm trying. I'm trying to figure
this out. They saw something in her over the past
decade that thought she was ready to take the next step.
She did. She hadn't been in here long and she
(03:49):
walked out of the place. Don't get me wrong. She
didn't just walk out and go to McDonald's when she
wasn't supposed to. This took effort, intent and cut off
her monitoring device.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yes, and okay, so prosecutors in the spring, we're warning
about this man who she was having communications with, violent
communications with. Well, turns out we don't know if it's
the same man. But she was found last night at
a truck stop in Illinois. This is more than one
hundred miles away from the group home she was supposed
to be in in Wisconsin. She was found just outside
(04:20):
of Chicago with a forty two year old man who
police interestingly are saying they will not provide his name.
They will not provide a booking photo or any details
of his involvement, but we know he was charged with
criminal trespassing and obstructing identification.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Wait, a refusal to identify him doesn't make what's the
logic there?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
We don't know in all of the media reports. Obviously, reporters,
journalists are trying to figure out who this guy is,
this forty two year old man, and police said, we're
not going to tell you why. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh I'm sorry. I didn't think, like why because of this,
because of some privacy, because of something same, what could
composing on?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Perhaps they feel like he could.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Be maybe the investigation is to.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The investigation into what was going on between him and
Amanda Geyser. I mean, this Morgan Geyser, this might actually
have a I mean you would think it would have
an impact on whether or not she gets to now
stay in this group home, if she has to go
back to the mental health facility, if she has to
go to prison.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But is this not an automatic she's out of that
you lose your group home?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Think that would be the case. She is being charged.
We don't know exactly what it is yet, but look
this is you could see her attorney, her parents, they
were pleading with her, like, we fought so hard to
secure your freedom, and look what you've just gone and done.
So yeah, she was on her way out and she decided, yeah,
to willfully cut off her electronic monitoring device. And take
(05:51):
off with a forty two year old man. And how
she I guess, I guess when you're in a group home,
I don't know what the rules are, how strict they are,
who you can communicate with, where you can go, how
long you can be out, But certainly she willfully went
against the rules.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Any this was only happening. Was she only talking to
this guy while at the group home. No, she got
privileges in the psychiatric org to talk to who she
wants to.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So all we can go by is what the prosecutors
said when they had that hearing in the spring whether
or not she would be transferred to this group home,
and they said that they had proof that she had
violent communications with a man outside the facility. So that's
interesting to me. When you're in a mental facility being
held there for an attempted murder, I'm surprised that you're
(06:39):
allowed to have outside communication with random people.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I mean, maybe she was violating privileges. Maybe she was
doing this and she wasn't supposed to be doing this,
but I figured.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That, but it didn't hurt her in terms of her
next step towards freedom, which is interesting to me, and
especially this is a young woman.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wait, they didn't find out about it, and they knew
about it before before she was released. That's right, the
prosecutor is making that correct.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And so my point too here is you've got a
young woman who has clearly proven that she is easily
influenced by the Internet, because that is how this whole
thing started. And can you imagine being the victim in
this case, Peyton Leitner and her family, she survived this
(07:24):
vicious attack on her own by crawling out of the woods.
We can get into this crime because I had forgotten
all of the details. But now you're hearing this old
ex friend who tried to kill you and left you
for dead, just escaped the group home she was in.
That had to be a very scary twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, where's she going? Where's she headed? Does she want
to finish in the day? Yeah? Mean you have to
be thinking about that, and I don't. I mean, having
kept up with this young lady and what she's been
doing in the mental institute for the past ten years,
the progress she's made, I haven't, I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Know, But how do you go? Because yes, it's actually
been less than ten years she was at this mental
health facility. How do you go from being convicted to
forty years up to forty years at a mental health
facility and released into a group home in less than
ten That also has to be alarming. I'm imagining being
the parents of Peyton Leitner and a family spokesperson actually
(08:20):
spoke out while she was on a LAMB and then
had a statement when she was recaptured. But it speaks
to where they were. I was thinking, Wow, it seems
crazy to all of us. It has to seem like
an abomination of justice to them.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Well, the point of the system, right is supposed to
be rehabilitation, and with somebody's mental has been deemed that
have some mental defect, or they put her there and
not in prison. They put her there and not in
a child or a juvenile facility. They put her there
and instead of they made some determination that something is
not right with her mentally, this is where she needs
to be for us to give her care. Is the
(08:55):
point of the care not to heal, not to get
you to a better place. Or you think, yeah, we
just spend your time here until we let you go
out into the world while you're still got mental issues.
So isn't the point supposed to be. Rehabilitation is supposed
to be to get her better.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I thought in this country it was retribution before rehabilitation.
I thought that we were first holding people accountable for
the crimes they commit. And when you commit an adult
crime like that, there needs to be some form of punishment.
And yes, of course, we would all want folks to
be rehabilitated. We would all want folks to be able
to improve and then become actually contributing members of society.
(09:30):
But are some people you don't know who is capable
of that and who is not. And it's important to
note Morgan Geyser and the other sixth grade classmate, Anissa Weyer,
who was egging her on, was watching while the stabbing
was going on. They were initially charged as adults. Do
you remember that they were initially charged as adults and
(09:52):
they pleaded guilty to stabbing Lightner and then they're guilty
please were vacated because they were found not guilty by
reason of mental disease or defect. And that's when both
of them were sent to mental health facilities instead of
to prison.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So that's the point there is, it's not always Yes,
rehabilitation has to start first, right, you can't have folks retribution,
as you said, if you're deemed not mentally there when
you committed the crime. Those rules and those laws are
there for a reason. Our system, if we are to
(10:29):
trust it, made a determination that something is wrong with
these two twelve year olds that went beyond them having
full responsibility for their actions because of some mental defect.
Let's get that worked out, okay, I mean I have
to trust that that's the way the system is supposed
to work. Thank goodness, nobody got injured or heard or
(10:50):
killed in this particular one. But there's so much How
many others like this are there? How many other times
has someone done this and this just happens to be
high profile. Maybe this is an indication of how jack
our system is that something like this can happen When
you have someone who tried who stab somebody nineteen times
and the escape plan was just a pair of scissors,
(11:10):
that's uh, probably should be disturbing.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And the Lightner family after she was apprehended, well, first
of all, while she was on the run, she was
saying they were working closely with police to make sure
that they were safe. So they obviously were given some
sort of protection while Geyser was on the lamb, And
then they said the family would like to thank all
(11:34):
of the law enforcement entities involved in the efforts to
apprehend Morgan. The Lightner family also wishes to think the
outpouring of support from family, friends, and well wishers who
have contacted them during this difficult time. That was interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, I don't know how she's I mean, how is
she doing at twenty three? But you don't it's scary.
I mean, there was an attempted murderer on the loose.
And if you're the family of the person she attempted
to murder, yeah, that's a I don't know where the
family is. This all happened in Wisconsin, the original crime,
(12:09):
and this young lady had gone over to Illinois. But
what was she doing? Where was she going? What was
the point? I haven't seen anything about that yet. What
was the motive it could have been? Could it have
been innocent? Right? If she's not all there or not right?
Maybe she's influenced. The guy wants to take her and
go get married somewhere, take her to a nice restaurant.
Who knows, I just know. But is it always do
(12:32):
we have to assume the faarious attempt. Yeah, because she's
attempted murder.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yes, And I just have to go back to the
prosecutor's original concern that she was having violent communications with
a man and was reading books with themes of sexual
sadism and murder. So that that is concerning, Like, no
matter what. So when we come back, we're going to
talk about the crime. I just a refresher because this
is worth remembering, just in terms of what the crime
(12:59):
actually entailed, and whose Slenderman actually is and where the
other girl in all of this, the other twelve year
old where is she? What happened to her? And continuing
(13:20):
our conversation on this story that got a lot of
folks attention over the weekend. Now twenty three year old
Morgan Geyser, who was a part of that vicious, heinous
Slenderman attack on her at the time she was twelve.
She viciously stabbed her twelve year old friend and classmate
(13:41):
nineteen times, alongside another young twelve year old girl who
was standing by and egging them on. She escaped from
a group home, and you could say escaped, but she
was on her way to securing her freedom. She was
placed from a mental institution where she had been for
the past decade, and then released to a group home
where she eventually was on her way to being released
(14:03):
fully into society. But she cut off her ankle bracelet
and took off with a forty two year old man,
and prosecutors had a lot of concerns about where her
head was, where her focus was, given a book she
was reading in communication she was having with a man
while she was inside the facility, and so here we are.
She has been apprehended. But it's important to go back
(14:25):
and actually remember this crime in twenty fourteen. This was
sadistic and to see it happen among twelve year olds
is just more than.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Appalling, it's inexplicable. I have a twelve year old got
to this point to twelve year old girls, and it's
almost to a point you have to wonder, are they well?
I say, okay, I ain't saying what's wrong with them,
but something is off, something is not right, and that's
maybe why they ended up where they ended up in
mental facilities. But the details of this, I know girls
(14:55):
and young girls and young teenagers and young kids. These
are tweens, right, I know they can be easily influenced.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You have a twelve year old.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
This is other level stuff. The links they went through
to do this for a fictional character.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
These are sixth graders, and you know what, they were
friends too, That's what's so scary. So this was Morgan
Geyser who we've been talking about, Anissa Wire and then
the victim, Peyton Lightner. But they were all at a
slumber party and it was I believe Morgan's birthday, and
so they told her they wanted to play a game
(15:33):
of hide and seek in the woods. But they planned
this out, they said. Initially Geyser said they were going
to stab her while she was sleeping, but they waited
until the next morning, went out into the woods and
they well they well, Geyser stabbed her and Wire watched
nineteen times, left her for dead, walked back home and
(15:55):
went about their business. Meantime, Lightner literally crawled to safety
and went to the hospital with life threatening injuries, and
remarkably she survived. But it's all about it.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That was incredible to me that that young lady, how
she again nineteen stab wounds. I mean they're not all
deep penetrating, but still you got Staff nineteen with a
kitchen knife. It seemed impossible when you hear nineteen like
how she survived that?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And so yes, they all claimed that they were trying
to impress and prove that this slender Man was real.
And look, you go online and try to figure out
who slender Man is. These are there are stories that
have taken over for quite some time, but right around
I think just two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
they started to to come up everywhere and there was
(16:44):
a web series Marble Hornets.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Have you heard of that, Marble Hornets.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, So it established the idea that there were humans
who could fall under slender Man's influence. And so they
talk about slender Man. If you don't know who he is.
He's this tall, thin, fictional character who wears a suit,
has tentacle like arms. He wears a dark suit and
(17:09):
a tie, and he targets children and young adults. And
this is just supposed to I don't know if it
was meant to scare kids, some sort of urban legend
sort of thing that these kids fell under this belief,
and there was some sort of a website where you
could prove that he was real. And so by doing
this they were trying to prove that he was real,
that he was going to somehow acknowledge this sacrifice they
(17:32):
had made in his honor. It was just bizarre.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Boy. So they tell you got to know what your
kids are doing online? Right? That's wild? And it was influenced.
Were they impressionable enough? I don't know, but to take
these extremes, even if you went out into the forest
on your own to look for the guys. One thing.
But it's just I never got real answers to this story.
I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It's like, look, you can I think think about Sabine
and sweet Sabine, Like could she be easily influenced to
think something real that wasn't? Maybe not, but say even
she was, don't you have to have something in you
then to be able to do that to your friend.
That's the scary thing. That's the scary thing. And I
(18:14):
mentioned the other young woman a Nissa Wire again, she
was the one who watched and goaded on Morgan Geyser
to continue the stabbing. She was sentenced up to twenty
five years at a psychiatric institute, but in twenty twenty
one she was granted supervised release. So she was nineteen,
so she got off sooner and quicker, and we haven't
(18:36):
heard from her at all. And look, I don't know
if that punishment fits that crime either. It's just this
is they did not spend the time that they were
sentenced to. I guess it's up to so it's discretionary.
But certainly these young women, it's a little scary to
think about them being out in the world given what
(18:57):
they were convicted of doing.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
She's back, took twenty four hours. Wonderful. We'll get more
answers about this, and certainly wonder if we will hear
who this guy is that she was with.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yes, I think that most folks aren't going to let
this go, at least journalists and certainly in the local area.
You think people are going to be in media outlets
are going to be asking for answers in terms of
who this man is, what his role was, and what
is now going to happen to Morgan Geyser. But we
will make sure to keep you updated on all of
what's going on in this case, in this slender Man escape.
(19:27):
But thank you so much for listening to us, everybody.
I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ. Holmes, and we'll talk to
you soon.
Hey there, folks. It is Monday, November twenty fourth, and
one of the girls convicted in that shocking slender Man
attack a decade ago just fled this weekend. She was
recaptured a short time later, but that's not the point,
and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and
TJ Robes. Prosecutors didn't want her to be in a
(00:25):
position to be able to flee where she was supposed
to be in the first place. This is going to
raise some questions now, because how does she get away? Well,
she quite simply just cut off an ankle monitor and
walked out right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This was not a maximum security facility. She was moved
into a group home to facilitate ultimate release. That was
shocking to me because we are talking about now twenty
three year old Morgan Geyser, But she was twelve years
old at the time of a very violent and extremely
heinous crime where she left a friend and a classmate
(01:01):
to die after stabbing her viciously nineteen times while another
twelve year old watched and egged her on. This made
international headlines and it is shocking to me that she
has the level of freedom she even had to be
able to flee when she did.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, we have to trust the professionals who've been monitoring
her for the past decade. The reason again, if this
was just that, that is shocking, if it was just
twelve year olds involved and what you described. But then
the added part of this or open again it ended
up being a movie was why they said they did it.
It was just bizarre that twelve year old girls got
so caught up in something that they're wont going to
(01:40):
the forest looking for a fictional character.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes, trying to actually impress a fictional character named Slenderman.
And we'll get into all of that because I actually,
even though at the time, obviously this was a big
story that we all covered, you forget what actually it entailed.
And I my jaw drop to find that she was
already in a home and you mentioned the prosecutors. This
all happened in March, so she was sentenced to up
(02:07):
to forty years in a psychiatric institution. That seems appropriate
given her age and given the level of violence in
her crime. But this past March, a judge said that
Geyser could be released from this mental health facility to
a group home because three psychologists testified on her behalf
(02:29):
that she was prepared for supervised released. She was supposed
to wear this monitoring bracelet. This was supposed to be
her kind of in between time when you go to
a group home before you're ultimately released to freedom. She
failed to test, but yes she did. But prosecutors, they
actually tried to stop this in March because they said
(02:50):
that they had evidence that she was having a They
called it a violent communication with a man outside of
this mental health facility. And they say that within the
facility she was reading a book with themes of sexual sadism,
and murder. So they felt like she wasn't ready to
go to a group home.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Then why I would a judge think otherwise.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Because three psychologists said she was, Well, where was the fourth, fifth,
and sixth psychologists?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'm sure you could find somebody else that would say differently,
But if did they work, I didn't see this. Those
three were they ones that had worked with her for
years at this facility.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I believe that was the case.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, I mean he's supposed to listen, right, isn't he
supposed to listen to them? I mean, he's making the
best judgment he can, but he has to depend on
some experts that's why I'm trying. I'm trying to figure
this out. They saw something in her over the past
decade that thought she was ready to take the next step.
She did. She hadn't been in here long and she
(03:49):
walked out of the place. Don't get me wrong. She
didn't just walk out and go to McDonald's when she
wasn't supposed to. This took effort, intent and cut off
her monitoring device.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yes, and okay, so prosecutors in the spring, we're warning
about this man who she was having communications with, violent
communications with. Well, turns out we don't know if it's
the same man. But she was found last night at
a truck stop in Illinois. This is more than one
hundred miles away from the group home she was supposed
to be in in Wisconsin. She was found just outside
(04:20):
of Chicago with a forty two year old man who
police interestingly are saying they will not provide his name.
They will not provide a booking photo or any details
of his involvement, but we know he was charged with
criminal trespassing and obstructing identification.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Wait, a refusal to identify him doesn't make what's the
logic there?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
We don't know in all of the media reports. Obviously, reporters,
journalists are trying to figure out who this guy is,
this forty two year old man, and police said, we're
not going to tell you why. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh I'm sorry. I didn't think, like why because of this,
because of some privacy, because of something same, what could
composing on?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Perhaps they feel like he could.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Be maybe the investigation is to.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The investigation into what was going on between him and
Amanda Geyser. I mean, this Morgan Geyser, this might actually
have a I mean you would think it would have
an impact on whether or not she gets to now
stay in this group home, if she has to go
back to the mental health facility, if she has to
go to prison.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But is this not an automatic she's out of that
you lose your group home?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Think that would be the case. She is being charged.
We don't know exactly what it is yet, but look
this is you could see her attorney, her parents, they
were pleading with her, like, we fought so hard to
secure your freedom, and look what you've just gone and done.
So yeah, she was on her way out and she decided, yeah,
to willfully cut off her electronic monitoring device. And take
(05:51):
off with a forty two year old man. And how
she I guess, I guess when you're in a group home,
I don't know what the rules are, how strict they are,
who you can communicate with, where you can go, how
long you can be out, But certainly she willfully went
against the rules.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Any this was only happening. Was she only talking to
this guy while at the group home. No, she got
privileges in the psychiatric org to talk to who she
wants to.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So all we can go by is what the prosecutors
said when they had that hearing in the spring whether
or not she would be transferred to this group home,
and they said that they had proof that she had
violent communications with a man outside the facility. So that's
interesting to me. When you're in a mental facility being
held there for an attempted murder, I'm surprised that you're
(06:39):
allowed to have outside communication with random people.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I mean, maybe she was violating privileges. Maybe she was
doing this and she wasn't supposed to be doing this,
but I figured.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That, but it didn't hurt her in terms of her
next step towards freedom, which is interesting to me, and
especially this is a young woman.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wait, they didn't find out about it, and they knew
about it before before she was released. That's right, the
prosecutor is making that correct.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And so my point too here is you've got a
young woman who has clearly proven that she is easily
influenced by the Internet, because that is how this whole
thing started. And can you imagine being the victim in
this case, Peyton Leitner and her family, she survived this
(07:24):
vicious attack on her own by crawling out of the woods.
We can get into this crime because I had forgotten
all of the details. But now you're hearing this old
ex friend who tried to kill you and left you
for dead, just escaped the group home she was in.
That had to be a very scary twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, where's she going? Where's she headed? Does she want
to finish in the day? Yeah? Mean you have to
be thinking about that, and I don't. I mean, having
kept up with this young lady and what she's been
doing in the mental institute for the past ten years,
the progress she's made, I haven't, I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Know, But how do you go? Because yes, it's actually
been less than ten years she was at this mental
health facility. How do you go from being convicted to
forty years up to forty years at a mental health
facility and released into a group home in less than
ten That also has to be alarming. I'm imagining being
the parents of Peyton Leitner and a family spokesperson actually
(08:20):
spoke out while she was on a LAMB and then
had a statement when she was recaptured. But it speaks
to where they were. I was thinking, Wow, it seems
crazy to all of us. It has to seem like
an abomination of justice to them.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Well, the point of the system, right is supposed to
be rehabilitation, and with somebody's mental has been deemed that
have some mental defect, or they put her there and
not in prison. They put her there and not in
a child or a juvenile facility. They put her there
and instead of they made some determination that something is
not right with her mentally, this is where she needs
to be for us to give her care. Is the
(08:55):
point of the care not to heal, not to get
you to a better place. Or you think, yeah, we
just spend your time here until we let you go
out into the world while you're still got mental issues.
So isn't the point supposed to be. Rehabilitation is supposed
to be to get her better.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I thought in this country it was retribution before rehabilitation.
I thought that we were first holding people accountable for
the crimes they commit. And when you commit an adult
crime like that, there needs to be some form of punishment.
And yes, of course, we would all want folks to
be rehabilitated. We would all want folks to be able
to improve and then become actually contributing members of society.
(09:30):
But are some people you don't know who is capable
of that and who is not. And it's important to
note Morgan Geyser and the other sixth grade classmate, Anissa Weyer,
who was egging her on, was watching while the stabbing
was going on. They were initially charged as adults. Do
you remember that they were initially charged as adults and
(09:52):
they pleaded guilty to stabbing Lightner and then they're guilty
please were vacated because they were found not guilty by
reason of mental disease or defect. And that's when both
of them were sent to mental health facilities instead of
to prison.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So that's the point there is, it's not always Yes,
rehabilitation has to start first, right, you can't have folks retribution,
as you said, if you're deemed not mentally there when
you committed the crime. Those rules and those laws are
there for a reason. Our system, if we are to
(10:29):
trust it, made a determination that something is wrong with
these two twelve year olds that went beyond them having
full responsibility for their actions because of some mental defect.
Let's get that worked out, okay, I mean I have
to trust that that's the way the system is supposed
to work. Thank goodness, nobody got injured or heard or
(10:50):
killed in this particular one. But there's so much How
many others like this are there? How many other times
has someone done this and this just happens to be
high profile. Maybe this is an indication of how jack
our system is that something like this can happen When
you have someone who tried who stab somebody nineteen times
and the escape plan was just a pair of scissors,
(11:10):
that's uh, probably should be disturbing.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And the Lightner family after she was apprehended, well, first
of all, while she was on the run, she was
saying they were working closely with police to make sure
that they were safe. So they obviously were given some
sort of protection while Geyser was on the lamb, And
then they said the family would like to thank all
(11:34):
of the law enforcement entities involved in the efforts to
apprehend Morgan. The Lightner family also wishes to think the
outpouring of support from family, friends, and well wishers who
have contacted them during this difficult time. That was interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, I don't know how she's I mean, how is
she doing at twenty three? But you don't it's scary.
I mean, there was an attempted murderer on the loose.
And if you're the family of the person she attempted
to murder, yeah, that's a I don't know where the
family is. This all happened in Wisconsin, the original crime,
(12:09):
and this young lady had gone over to Illinois. But
what was she doing? Where was she going? What was
the point? I haven't seen anything about that yet. What
was the motive it could have been? Could it have
been innocent? Right? If she's not all there or not right?
Maybe she's influenced. The guy wants to take her and
go get married somewhere, take her to a nice restaurant.
Who knows, I just know. But is it always do
(12:32):
we have to assume the faarious attempt. Yeah, because she's
attempted murder.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yes, And I just have to go back to the
prosecutor's original concern that she was having violent communications with
a man and was reading books with themes of sexual
sadism and murder. So that that is concerning, Like, no
matter what. So when we come back, we're going to
talk about the crime. I just a refresher because this
is worth remembering, just in terms of what the crime
(12:59):
actually entailed, and whose Slenderman actually is and where the
other girl in all of this, the other twelve year
old where is she? What happened to her? And continuing
(13:20):
our conversation on this story that got a lot of
folks attention over the weekend. Now twenty three year old
Morgan Geyser, who was a part of that vicious, heinous
Slenderman attack on her at the time she was twelve.
She viciously stabbed her twelve year old friend and classmate
(13:41):
nineteen times, alongside another young twelve year old girl who
was standing by and egging them on. She escaped from
a group home, and you could say escaped, but she
was on her way to securing her freedom. She was
placed from a mental institution where she had been for
the past decade, and then released to a group home
where she eventually was on her way to being released
(14:03):
fully into society. But she cut off her ankle bracelet
and took off with a forty two year old man,
and prosecutors had a lot of concerns about where her
head was, where her focus was, given a book she
was reading in communication she was having with a man
while she was inside the facility, and so here we are.
She has been apprehended. But it's important to go back
(14:25):
and actually remember this crime in twenty fourteen. This was
sadistic and to see it happen among twelve year olds
is just more than.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Appalling, it's inexplicable. I have a twelve year old got
to this point to twelve year old girls, and it's
almost to a point you have to wonder, are they well?
I say, okay, I ain't saying what's wrong with them,
but something is off, something is not right, and that's
maybe why they ended up where they ended up in
mental facilities. But the details of this, I know girls
(14:55):
and young girls and young teenagers and young kids. These
are tweens, right, I know they can be easily influenced.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You have a twelve year old.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
This is other level stuff. The links they went through
to do this for a fictional character.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
These are sixth graders, and you know what, they were
friends too, That's what's so scary. So this was Morgan
Geyser who we've been talking about, Anissa Wire and then
the victim, Peyton Lightner. But they were all at a
slumber party and it was I believe Morgan's birthday, and
so they told her they wanted to play a game
(15:33):
of hide and seek in the woods. But they planned
this out, they said. Initially Geyser said they were going
to stab her while she was sleeping, but they waited
until the next morning, went out into the woods and
they well they well, Geyser stabbed her and Wire watched
nineteen times, left her for dead, walked back home and
(15:55):
went about their business. Meantime, Lightner literally crawled to safety
and went to the hospital with life threatening injuries, and
remarkably she survived. But it's all about it.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That was incredible to me that that young lady, how
she again nineteen stab wounds. I mean they're not all
deep penetrating, but still you got Staff nineteen with a
kitchen knife. It seemed impossible when you hear nineteen like
how she survived that?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And so yes, they all claimed that they were trying
to impress and prove that this slender Man was real.
And look, you go online and try to figure out
who slender Man is. These are there are stories that
have taken over for quite some time, but right around
I think just two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
they started to to come up everywhere and there was
(16:44):
a web series Marble Hornets.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Have you heard of that, Marble Hornets.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, So it established the idea that there were humans
who could fall under slender Man's influence. And so they
talk about slender Man. If you don't know who he is.
He's this tall, thin, fictional character who wears a suit,
has tentacle like arms. He wears a dark suit and
(17:09):
a tie, and he targets children and young adults. And
this is just supposed to I don't know if it
was meant to scare kids, some sort of urban legend
sort of thing that these kids fell under this belief,
and there was some sort of a website where you
could prove that he was real. And so by doing
this they were trying to prove that he was real,
that he was going to somehow acknowledge this sacrifice they
(17:32):
had made in his honor. It was just bizarre.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Boy. So they tell you got to know what your
kids are doing online? Right? That's wild? And it was influenced.
Were they impressionable enough? I don't know, but to take
these extremes, even if you went out into the forest
on your own to look for the guys. One thing.
But it's just I never got real answers to this story.
I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It's like, look, you can I think think about Sabine
and sweet Sabine, Like could she be easily influenced to
think something real that wasn't? Maybe not, but say even
she was, don't you have to have something in you
then to be able to do that to your friend.
That's the scary thing. That's the scary thing. And I
(18:14):
mentioned the other young woman a Nissa Wire again, she
was the one who watched and goaded on Morgan Geyser
to continue the stabbing. She was sentenced up to twenty
five years at a psychiatric institute, but in twenty twenty
one she was granted supervised release. So she was nineteen,
so she got off sooner and quicker, and we haven't
(18:36):
heard from her at all. And look, I don't know
if that punishment fits that crime either. It's just this
is they did not spend the time that they were
sentenced to. I guess it's up to so it's discretionary.
But certainly these young women, it's a little scary to
think about them being out in the world given what
(18:57):
they were convicted of doing.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
She's back, took twenty four hours. Wonderful. We'll get more
answers about this, and certainly wonder if we will hear
who this guy is that she was with.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yes, I think that most folks aren't going to let
this go, at least journalists and certainly in the local area.
You think people are going to be in media outlets
are going to be asking for answers in terms of
who this man is, what his role was, and what
is now going to happen to Morgan Geyser. But we
will make sure to keep you updated on all of
what's going on in this case, in this slender Man escape.
(19:27):
But thank you so much for listening to us, everybody.
I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ. Holmes, and we'll talk to
you soon.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Zima
Chris Harrison
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