‘Slender Man’ stabbing: 40 years in mental hospital for girl who was 12 when she tried to kill playmate
Morgan Geyser, now 15, must be confined for as long as possible for ‘community protection’, judge orders
A Wisconsin girl who stabbed a classmate to curry favour 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 apologised 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 is doing well.”