Timeline: How the Waukesha Slender Man stabbing case played out over the years
In 2014, two 12-year-old Waukesha girls were charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide for what police say was a plot, planned over months, to kill their classmate to appease Slender Man, a fictitious internet character.
The girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, stabbed their victim 19 times with a 5-inch blade. The victim, Payton Leutner, was left for dead before she crawled from some woods at a park to a trail where she was found by a passing bicyclist. Leutner survived the attack.
Both Geyser and Weier were both found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and ordered to a mental health institute for decades-long commitments. Weier has since been conditionally released while Geyser's petitions for release have been denied.
Below is a look at major events in the case.
MAY 2014: BIRTHDAY SLEEPOVER ENDS IN VIOLENCE, ARRESTS
Geyser is allowed to have two friends over each year for her birthday. This year, she had a sleepover with Leutner and Weier. That is when she and Weier would try to kill their friend. After they awoke on May 31, the girls lure Leutner into the woods, tackle her and stab her, leaving her to die. Geyser and Weier are found hours later by police on the side of the road and tell investigators they are on their way to live with Slender Man. They are charged as adults the next day.
AUGUST 2014: JUDGE RULES GEYSER INCOMPETENT, FOR NOW
Based on testimony from two experts, a judge finds Geyser incompetent and suspends the prosecution of attempted first-degree intentional homicide charges against the 12-year-old.
AUGUST 2014: GOV. WALKER DECLARES DAY FOR STABBING VICTIM
Since news of the attack, people from around the world begin sending cards and letters to Leutner, whose family launched a fundraising site to cover her medical expenses. Gov. Scott Walker declares Aug. 13 "Purple Hearts for Healing Day."
SEPTEMBER 2014: IS WEIER COMPETENT?
Weier will also undergo a psychological evaluation, a judge orders, delaying a determination of whether to transfer her case to juvenile court.
SEPTEMBER 2014: AMERICA MEETS THE VICTIM, PAYTON LEUTNER
ABC's "20/20" features the Slender Man case, focusing on the victim's ongoing recovery and return to school for seventh grade. The Leutner family has not previously spoken with news media.
DECEMBER 2014: BOTH GIRLS FOUND COMPETENT TO PROCEED
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren rules both girls can understand the charges against them and aid in their own defense. A preliminary hearing is set for February.
FEBRUARY 2015: FINALLY, THE PRELIMINARY HEARING
Geyser believed she had to kill or she would be killed herself by the fictional Internet character Slender Man, her attorney tells a judge.
MARCH 2015: GIRLS SET FOR TRIAL, AS ADULTS
Bohren rejects the argument that the girls acted under a "kill or be killed" belief, which would have made the offense attempted second-degree intentional homicide and required the girls to be tried in juvenile court.
APRIL 2015: GEYSER SEEKS BAIL REDUCTION, RELEASE FROM JAIL FOR TREATMENT
Lawyers for Geyser request that her bail be reduced and that she be allowed to move to Milwaukee Academy, an all-girls residential treatment center in Wauwatosa. But Bohren says that because the facility is not secured, Geyser would be considered a flight risk.
MAY 2015: 1ST 'REVERSE WAIVER' HEARING
Forensic psychological evaluations show Weier as having a very low risk of future criminal activity and a high likelihood of success in treatment for the issues that landed her in the Slender Man stabbing case, experts testify.
JUNE 2015: GEYSER'S FAMILY HISTORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA REVEALED
The early-onset schizophrenia diagnosed in Geyser may have a genetic basis. At a court hearing, an expert witness reveals that Geyser's father had suffered from a similar mental illness as an adolescent and was hospitalized at least four times when he was 14 or 15.
AUGUST 2015: JUDGE RULES GIRLS DON'T QUALIFY FOR JUVENILE COURT
In a key decision, Bohren rules the defense doesn't pass a three-part test for transferring the cases to juvenile court. If adjudicated delinquent, the girls would serve at most two years in juvenile prison, and then be subject to intense community supervision until age 18.
AUGUST 2015: GIRLS' FACES REAPPEAR
After denying a transfer to juvenile court, Bohren lifts his restriction on news media showing the girls' faces in court. For the first time, the public outside the courtroom can see the significant change in the girls' appearances since their arrests more than a year earlier.
SEPTEMBER 2015: DEFENSE APPEALS DECISION ON 'REVERSE WAIVER'
The girls' attorneys ask an appellate court to reverse the judge's decision to keep the case in adult court. The first brief was filed before Christmas, but state lawyers sought extra time to respond and didn't file their brief until late February. The case has been on hold pending the Court of Appeals ruling.
JANUARY 2016: GEYSER ENTERS PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
A civil judge approves sending Geyser to a state mental hospital where she gets her first treatment for schizophrenia, including medication that her lawyer says quells the voices from imaginary friends like Slender Man. She had been confined to a juvenile detention center in West Bend.
JUNE 2016:GEYER'S MOM TALKS ABOUT HER STRUGGLE
Angie Geyser's experience has galvanized her into something of an advocate for reforms in mental illness and juvenile crime laws, and prompted her to finally share her perspective.
JULY 2016: COURT OF APPEALS RULES THAT WEIER AND GEYSER TO STAY IN ADULT COURT
Weier and Geyser are properly charged as adults, the Court of Appeals rules. The decision affirmed a trial judge's ruling in 2015 that the two girls had failed to show, "by a preponderance of evidence," that they should be transferred from adult court to juvenile court. The girls' lawyers have said from the time they were charged as adults that the cases should play out in juvenile court.
AUGUST 2016: GEYSER ENTERS PLEA
Geyser enters a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease and two doctors are ordered to evaluate Geyser to determine whether the girl's condition could support the not guilty by reason of mental disease finding.
SEPTEMBER 2016: WEIER PLEADS INSANITY
Weier pleads not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Someone entering this plea contends that at the time of the crime, a mental disease or defect prevented them from appreciating the wrongfulness of the action, or from conforming her conduct to the law.
AUGUST 2017: WEIER PLEADS GUILTY TO LESSER CHARGE
Weier pleads guilty to attempted second-degree homicide, as a party to a crime, with use of a deadly weapon and will proceed to trial only on whether her mental condition at the time should make her legally responsible for the crime.
SEPTEMBER 2017: WEIER FOUND NOT GUILTY BY MENTAL DISEASE
A jury rules that Weier should get treatment for the Slender Man delusion that led her to try to kill her sixth-grade classmate and not go to prison for the crime. Ten of 12 jurors agreed that Weier was suffering from a mental disorder when she and Geyser tried to fatally stab Leutner and that it prevented her from knowing her conduct was wrong.
SEPTEMBER 2017: GEYSER, PROSECUTORS REACH AGREEMENT TO AVOID TRIAL
Geyser, scheduled to go before a jury in October, pleads guilty as charged but not be held criminally liable and will remain at the state mental hospital where she has been getting treatment for about 18 months.
DECEMBER 2017:SLENDER MAN STABBING VICTIM STILL FEARFUL, SCARRED
Leutner shows outward signs of recovery but still carries deep fears and insecurities, as well as physical scars from the attack and the surgeries that saved her life, her mother says in a new court filing.
DECEMBER 2017: WEIER COMMITTED TO 25 YEARS
Weier, now 15 years old, is committed to 25 years, to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Bohren followed the prosecution recommendation for the maximum length of supervision. Weier will spend at least three years in the state mental institute before seeking release on community supervision. Her supervision will last until she is 37.
FEBRUARY 2018:GEYSER COMMITTED FOR 40 YEARS
Geyser is ordered committed to 40 years of mental health treatment and monitoring and will remain at a secure mental health institute. As with Weier, Bohren opts for the maximum commitment term after hearing from experts who suggested Geyser, now 15, could receive more effective treatment for her schizophrenia somewhere other than the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, where she is housed solely with adults who have committed crimes.
OCTOBER 2019: LEUTNER SPEAKS ON "20/20"
More than five years after being stabbed 19 times and nearly dying at the hands of her classmates, Leutner speaks publicly for the first time on ABC's "20/20" program, which aired a two-hour episode on the case. New interviews with Leutner's parents, Angie Geyser and police detectives are part of the special. Leutner, now 17 and a high school senior, speaks about her friendship with Geyser, the attack and her fears. She said she agrees that adult court was the appropriate jurisdiction for Geyser and Weier. "Adult crime is adult court," Leutner said in the episode.
JANUARY 2019: GEYSER CHALLENGES DECISION TO TRY HER IN ADULT COURT WHEN SHE WAS 12
Geyser should not have been prosecuted as an adult, her lawyer argues in a brief for her appeal that seeks to discharge her conviction. The appeal also argues that Geyser, who had just turned 12 when she was arrested, couldn't really understand what rights she gave up when she agreed to speak alone with a detective in custody and delivered a disturbing confession on video.
AUGUST 2020: GEYSER LOSES APPEAL
Wisconsin's 2nd District Court of Appeals agrees with Bohren that keeping the case in adult court was the right call and does not address the other aspect of the appeal, which challenges the use of Geyser's statements to detectives hours after the stabbing. Geyser's lawyer said "Morgan's fight is not over" and will appeal to the state's Supreme Court.
SEPTEMBER 2020: GEYSER HEADS TO SUPREME COURT
Geyser's attorney files a petition of review with the Supreme Court, in an attempt to reverse a circuit court judge's decision and court of appeal's ruling on trying the case in adult court as well as to set a standard and clarification for the law.
NOVEMBER 2020: WEIER PETITIONS TO BE RELEASED
Weier, now 19 years old, filed a petition in court for her conditional release, saying she would not pose a significant risk of bodily harm to herself or others, or cause serious property damage, if released under specific conditions. Three mental health professionals will evaluate Weier before releasing reports to Bohren by Jan. 29. A hearing has been scheduled for March to hear arguments.
JANUARY 2021: STATE SUPREME COURT DENIES GEYSER'S APPEAL
Geyser's petition of review with the Supreme Court was denied.
MARCH 2021: WEIER TO APPEAR IN COURT FOR CONDITIONAL RELEASE
Weier is asking for her conditional release from a state mental health hospital. Three court-ordered mental health experts say Weier meets the standard for conditional release and her attorneys say she has had "extraordinary compliance" while institutionalized. However, prosecutors say Weier still presents "a danger to others" and shouldn't be released.
JULY 2021: JUDGE GRANTS WEIER'S CONDITIONAL RELEASE
Judge Bohren on July 1 granted Weier her conditional release after finding there is no "clear and convincing evidence that the defendant poses a substantial risk of harm to others, herself, or serious property damage." A conditional release plan will be prepared before she is released from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Weier's next court hearing is Sept. 10.
September 2021: JUDGE APPROVES WEIER'S CONDITIONAL RELEASE
Bohren approved a conditional release plan for Weier on Sept. 10. Weier will be released from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute on Sept. 13 and will serve out the rest of her commitment in the community. She will be monitored with a GPS tracking device and will be supervised with case managers until she's 37 years old.
April 2024: JUDGE DENIES GEYSER'S CONDITIONAL RELEASE
Judge Bohren denied the petition for conditional release of Geyser on Thursday, April 12. Geyser, who turns 22 in May, will remain solely under the care of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh, eliminating the option of an immediate plan to transition out of the facility.
Bohren heard testimony from four mental health professionals who recently evaluated her.