Girl in Slender Man stabbing to be committed to mental hospital for 40 years
A Wisconsin girl who stabbed a classmate to curry favor with the fictional horror character Slender Man will be committed to a mental hospital for 40 years, a judge ordered Thursday, explaining his decision as "an issue of community protection."
Judge Michael Bohren granted the maximum penalty that prosecutors had sought and discounted Morgan Geyser's youth -- she was just 12 -- at the time of the attack in 2014.
"What we can't forget is this was an attempted murder," Bohren said. Earlier, he heard from four doctors who talked about how Geyser is making progress with her mental illness, to various degrees. But Bohren called the teenager "a fragile person" whose long history suffering from delusions make her a risk to hurt herself and others.
Geyser, now 15, spoke briefly before she was sentenced, breaking down in tears as she apologized to the girl she stabbed, Payton Leutner.
"I just want to let Bella and her family know that I'm sorry," she said, using a nickname for Leutner. "And I hope she's doing well."
Geyser and another girl, Anissa Weier, admitted that they lured Leutner into some woods near a suburban Milwaukee park. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier urged her on, according to investigators. They left Leutner for dead but she crawled out of the woods and got help from a passing bicyclist. All three girls were 12 at the time.
One of two Wisconsin girls who pleaded guilty to stabbing a classmate as part of a bizarre attempt to gain favor with a fictional Internet character has been ordered committed to a mental institution for 40 years, the maximum penalty sought by prosecutors.
Morgan Geyser had pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder in the near-fatal stabbing of Payton Leutner. Her cohort, Anissa Weier, pleaded guilty to being a party to the crime and was sentenced in December to 25 years in a mental institution. All three girls, including the victim, were 12 at the time of the incident.
Geyser and Weier, now teenagers, were tried as adults. Leutner survived the attack.
"I just want to let Bella and her family know that I'm sorry," a tearful Geyser said, using Leutner's nickname. "And I hope she's doing well."
The two girls apparently carried out the attack to impress a horror character known as Slender Man.
As member station WUWM in Milwaukee has reported, in the spring of 2014, Geyser and Weier lured Leutner to the woods in Waukesha, attacked her and left her to die.
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