More than nine years after the infamous Slender Man stabbing shocked the community of Waukesha, Wisconsin, one of the conspirators involved is one step closer to freedom.

According to FOX11, a judge granted Anissa Weier conditional release from GPS monitoring one week ago, though she continues to be supervised. Weier, now 21, was previously released from a mental health facility in 2021.

In May 2014, Weier and Morgan Geyser—both 12 at the time—lured their 12-year-old friend Payton Leutner into the woods following a birthday sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times using a knife from her home, before the two left their injured friend to die. Leutner miraculously survived after crawling out of the woods for help.

Weier and Geyser later told investigators the attack was an attempted offering to the fictional internet character Slender Man, whom they believed would kill their families otherwise. The shocking details of the case and its connection to the urban legend drew national attention, with HBO airing a documentary titled Beware the Slenderman about the incident in 2017.

Here’s what you need to know about the attack and where Weier, Geyser, and Leutner are now.

A Friendship Gone Wrong

According to New York Magazine, Weier, Geyser, and Leutner all began attending Horning Middle School in fall 2013. Weier and Geyser were socially isolated and found a lifeline in Leutner.

Around this time, a friend introduced Weier to Creepypasta, a horror fan site where users created fake encyclopedia entries and other testimonials about fictional monsters and supernatural beings as if they were real. One of those was Slender Man—a tall, faceless entity initially created for a Photoshop contest. The character’s lore expanded through more posts on the site, eventually including his “pattern” of abducting children.

Weier began to believe Slender Man actually existed, and Geyser additionally became obsessed with the character—she even believed she had private, telepathic conversations with him.

More True Crime

Weier told investigators that Geyser proposed the idea of killing Leutner to become proxies of Slender Man in late December 2013 or early January of the following year. Geyser said Weier was the architect of the plan: “She made it seem necessary, and I figured that if it was necessary, then I would,” she explained. In any case, the preteens kept their plot a secret and didn’t act on it for months.

On May 30, 2014, the girls gathered to celebrate Geyser’s 12th birthday. It was a Friday night, and they went to a local roller skating rink before returning to Geyser’s house. They woke up in the morning, played dress-up, and ate breakfast before asking Geyser’s mother, Angie, if they could go outside to play. As Leutner walked ahead, Geyser secretly showed Weier the knife she had taken from her kitchen.

Minutes later, the two girls carried out their plan. After leaving Leutner, they washed up at a nearby Walmart and wandered around Waukesha for a few hours before police found them sitting in the grass near the interstate. They were planning to walk to Slender Man’s mansion, which they believed was hundreds of miles away in the Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin.

According to The New York Times, Leutner, barely able to talk, was discovered by a cyclist who called for help. She was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery.

Where Is Morgan Geyser Now?

Morgan Geyser enters her guilty plea in the Slender Man Stabbing case inside a Waukesha County, Wisconsin, courtroom in October 2017.

Both Geyser and Weier were charged with attempted first-degree homicide. In March 2015, the judge assigned to the case rejected the argument the girls acted under a “kill or be killed” belief, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. This meant that, despite their young age, they would be tried in adult court.

According to Rolling Stone, Geyser was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia after being taken into custody. It was later revealed in court that her father, Matthew, had suffered from a similar illness as an adolescent. Geyser was transferred to a state mental hospital to receive treatment and, in August 2016, pleaded not guilty because of insanity.

But before she could go before a jury, Geyser reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in September 2017. The plea deal stipulated she wouldn’t be held criminally liable and would continue treatment at a mental health facility. In February 2018, Judge Michael Bohren ordered the maximum commitment term of 40 years for Geyser.

As recently as May 2023, Geyser and her legal team filed a petition for conditional release, according to TMJ4, a local news station in Milwaukee. However, it was withdrawn in August.

Annisa Weier Remains Under Supervision

Weier, meanwhile, initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in September 2016. Just under a year later, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of attempted second-degree homicide. In September 2017, a jury found her not guilty by mental disease, and she was soon committed to 25 years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

But in July 2021, Bohren ruled that Weier no longer posed a substantial risk to herself or others and granted her conditional release from the facility. That September, the terms of Weier’s released were finalized. She was required to have around-the-clock GPS monitoring and remain under the supervision of case managers until she turned 37.

On September 12, 2023, a judge removed the GPS stipulation. That means Weier now has the highest degree of freedom since the attack and, seemingly, a chance to begin rebuilding her life.

Payton Leutner Recovered and Is Living Her Life with a Plan

According to ABC Action News in Tampa Bay, Florida, Leutner underwent extensive surgery to repair her heart, liver, stomach, and pancreas following the attack. She survived but was left with both physical scars—25 in total, according to her mother, Stacie—and emotional trauma. Leutner later revealed she slept with broken scissors under her pillow for protection.

In October 2019, Leutner gave her first interview about the incident to ABC News. She explained she didn’t think much of the hide-and-seek game they asked to play in the forest because she thought it was only a trick. “I didn’t feel anything, because my body was in shock,” she told journalist David Muir. “I got up and just walked until I hit a patch of grass where I could lay down…. I shouldn’t be alive. I really shouldn’t be after what happened.”

Leutner said she never wanted to see or talk to Geyser and Weier again but expressed sympathy for Geyer’s mother, Angie. “I’ve thought about what she’s going through and how hard it must be for her,” she said. “Morgan’s schizophrenic. There is nothing that she could have done to stop or control that. It was not her fault.”

As horrifying as her ordeal was, Leutner has said she found at least one positive: The experience gave her a clear plan for her life. “I wouldn’t think that someone who went through what I did would ever say that. But that’s truly how I feel. Without the whole situation, I wouldn’t be who I am,” she said.

Leutner has since graduated high school and has said she wants to pursue a career in the medical field. As of September 2021, she was a college sophomore and had a part-time job, according to the Associated Press.

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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