NEED TO KNOW
- Morgan Geyser has been granted release by a judge from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute
- Geyser has been at the psychiatric facility since 2017
- The mother of Geyser’s victim previously expressed concerns about the location Geyser was set to be moved to
The Wisconsin woman who tried to fatally stab her friend following a sleepover in 2014 — when they were both 12 — will walk free, a judge has ruled after months of consideration, per the Associated Press.
Morgan Geyser, now 22, admitted in 2017 to stabbing her best friend Peyton Leutner in 2014, in a plan she hatched with co-defendant Anissa Weier to please an online mythical creature known as the “Slenderman.”
Geyser accepted a plea deal in 2017 and spent the last eight years at a psychiatric facility. On Thursday, July 17, a Waukesha County judge ruled Geyser can be released, per the AP.
This ruling comes after months of back-and-forth between the judge, prosecutors and experts who testified about Geyser’s current mental state.
In January, following expert testimonies vouching for Geyser’s progress, a judge ruled she could be released from the facility.
But in March, a brief concern arose after it was revealed that Geyser was reading a book with themes of sexual sadism and sale of human organs in the black market, Court TV, The Waukesha Freeman and WISN reported at the time, citing authorities.
In April, after Leutner’s mother expressed concerns about the location where Geyser was set to be resettled, prosecutors objected to Geyser’s conditional release, the AP reported. The group home where Geyser was to be relocated, Leutner’s mother said at the time, was about eight miles from where Leutner lives.
After the judge ordered a new plan from the Department of Health Services, the judge approved Geyser’s release.
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Geyser and Weier gained notoriety in 2014 after luring Leutner into the woods following a sleepover, where they proceeded to stab the young girl 19 times. All three were 12 at the time.
Geyser and Weier were both candid in their interviews with officers and told them they carried out the crime in order to appease a mythical online creature known as the “Slenderman.”
Leutner survived the attack and physically recovered.
Neither a date for Geyser’s conditional release nor the new details in the updated draft were immediately clear.
Read the full article here