Woman convicted in 'Slender Man' stabbing captured after escape from group home

Morgan Geyser, the Wisconsin woman who was convicted in the "Slender Man" stabbing in 2014, was captured by police late Sunday night after escaping from a group home where she was serving her sentence. 

The city of Madison Police Department confirmed that Geyser was taken into custody in Illinois at about 10:34 p.m., ending the search that began after she cut off her Department of Corrections monitoring bracelet on Saturday night and fled a Madison group home, Fox News reported.

Geyser pleaded guilty in 2017 to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the stabbing of Payton Leutner, but claimed she was not responsible because of her mental illness. She told authorities that she tried to kill Leutner to please the horror game character Slender Man and was found not guilty by reason of mental defect.

Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, were 12 years old when they lured Leutner into a wooded park during a sleepover in May 2014. Encouraged by Weier, Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times, which she survived.

Geyser was in custody at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for the last seven years.

Initially, Geyser was sentenced to 40 years in the psychiatric hospital and could ask the court to consider her conditional release every six months.