Morgan Geyser will likely be extradited back to Wisconsin after she fled from a Madison group home over the weekend.
Geyser was in sixth grade when, in 2014, she stabbed her classmate in order please the fictional horror character known as Slender Man. She was committed to a state mental health facility after she pleaded guilty to attempted first degree intentional homicide.
She was granted conditional release over the summer over the objections of prosecutors and had been living in a group home.
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The now 23-year-old removed her ankle monitoring bracelet and did not return to her group home on Saturday night, according to Madison police. She was arrested at a truck stop in the village of Posen, Illinois on Sunday.
A social media post from the Posen Police Department said Geyser was with a man and was sleeping on a sidewalk. She originally gave a false name to police.
“After continued attempts to identify her, she finally stated that she didn’t want to tell officers who she was because she had ‘done something really bad,’ and suggested that officers could ‘just Google’ her name,” the social media post said.
An ABC7 report said Geyser was with a 42-year-old man who was also arrested for trespassing, but was later released. Geyser was in custody at the Cook County Jail on Monday morning, according to a spokesperson for the jail.
Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese said there is a warrant for Geyser’s arrest. There will be an extradition hearing Tuesday morning in Chicago.
Jonathan LaVoy, a defense attorney and partner with Kim & LaVoy Attorneys at Law in Milwaukee, said the extradition hearing should be simple.
“Extradition cases are very rarely ever contested, and are certainly very rarely ever won by a criminal defendant,” LaVoy said.
But the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, DOC, said Geyser can also decline to waive extradition.
“If an individual declines to waive extradition, the extradition process may take several months,” the Wisconsin Department of Corrections wrote in a statement.
During a press conference Monday, Boese said when Geyser is extradited to Wisconsin she will be released to the custody of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Boese said it’s ultimately up to that department on whether or not a petition to revoke her conditional release will be filed.
“We are certainly hopeful that they do proceed with that,” Boese said.
If the petition to revoke her conditional release is granted, she could be placed back in an institutional care facility, according to Waukesha County assistant district attorney Abbey Nickolie.
Geyser had been at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute since 2018. She filed a petition of release last year. A final plan and placement for her release to a group home was signed on Sept. 17.
Boese said her office learned that Geyser was missing on Sunday morning and then notified the victim’s family.
“While she (Geyser) was on the loose, we were very concerned about the safety of the victim and her family, as well as our community,” Boese said.
On Monday morning, Geyser’s attorney Anthony Cotton said he hadn’t talked with Geyser since she had been in custody. He said he will not be representing her during Tuesday’s hearing in Illinois.
“My guess is that Morgan (Geyser) will presumably be taken back to the mental health hospital, re-evaluated and further decisions will have to be made about whether or not she’s suitable for release in the future,” Cotton said.
Madison police provides timeline of events
Cotton said Geyser would have had close to 24/7 monitoring at the group home. She was last seen at the group home at around 8:15 p.m. on Saturday night, according to a timeline of events provided by the Madison Police Department.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections received an alert that her GPS ankle bracelet was not working at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night, according to the timeline. The DOC made contact with the group home around two hours later, according to the timeline.
“Around midnight, DOC issued an apprehension request for Geyser,” the timeline said. “This request was never relayed to the Madison Police Department.”
The police department received a call at 7:46 a.m. on Sunday morning from someone at the group home who reported Geyser as a missing person.
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