Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, November twenty fourth, and
Speaker 1: one of the girls convicted in that shocking slender Man
Speaker 1: attack a decade ago just fled this weekend. She was
Speaker 1: recaptured a short time later, but that's not the point,
Speaker 1: and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and
Speaker 1: TJ Robes. Prosecutors didn't want her to be in a
Speaker 1: position to be able to flee where she was supposed
Speaker 1: to be in the first place. This is going to
Speaker 1: raise some questions now, because how does she get away? Well,
Speaker 1: she quite simply just cut off an ankle monitor and
Speaker 1: walked out right.
Speaker 2: This was not a maximum security facility. She was moved
Speaker 2: into a group home to facilitate ultimate release. That was
Speaker 2: shocking to me because we are talking about now twenty
Speaker 2: three year old Morgan Geyser, But she was twelve years
Speaker 2: old at the time of a very violent and extremely
Speaker 2: heinous crime where she left a friend and a classmate
Speaker 2: to die after stabbing her viciously nineteen times while another
Speaker 2: twelve year old watched and egged her on. This made
Speaker 2: international headlines and it is shocking to me that she
Speaker 2: has the level of freedom she even had to be
Speaker 2: able to flee when she did.
Speaker 1: Well, we have to trust the professionals who've been monitoring
Speaker 1: her for the past decade. The reason again, if this
Speaker 1: was just that, that is shocking, if it was just
Speaker 1: twelve year olds involved and what you described. But then
Speaker 1: the added part of this or open again it ended
Speaker 1: up being a movie was why they said they did it.
Speaker 1: It was just bizarre that twelve year old girls got
Speaker 1: so caught up in something that they're wont going to
Speaker 1: the forest looking for a fictional character.
Speaker 2: Yes, trying to actually impress a fictional character named Slenderman.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into all of that because I actually,
Speaker 2: even though at the time, obviously this was a big
Speaker 2: story that we all covered, you forget what actually it entailed.
Speaker 2: And I my jaw drop to find that she was
Speaker 2: already in a home and you mentioned the prosecutors. This
Speaker 2: all happened in March, so she was sentenced to up
Speaker 2: to forty years in a psychiatric institution. That seems appropriate
Speaker 2: given her age and given the level of violence in
Speaker 2: her crime. But this past March, a judge said that
Speaker 2: Geyser could be released from this mental health facility to
Speaker 2: a group home because three psychologists testified on her behalf
Speaker 2: that she was prepared for supervised released. She was supposed
Speaker 2: to wear this monitoring bracelet. This was supposed to be
Speaker 2: her kind of in between time when you go to
Speaker 2: a group home before you're ultimately released to freedom. She
Speaker 2: failed to test, but yes she did. But prosecutors, they
Speaker 2: actually tried to stop this in March because they said
Speaker 2: that they had evidence that she was having a They
Speaker 2: called it a violent communication with a man outside of
Speaker 2: this mental health facility. And they say that within the
Speaker 2: facility she was reading a book with themes of sexual sadism,
Speaker 2: and murder. So they felt like she wasn't ready to
Speaker 2: go to a group home.
Speaker 1: Then why I would a judge think otherwise.
Speaker 2: Because three psychologists said she was, Well, where was the fourth, fifth,
Speaker 2: and sixth psychologists?
Speaker 1: I'm sure you could find somebody else that would say differently,
Speaker 1: But if did they work, I didn't see this. Those
Speaker 1: three were they ones that had worked with her for
Speaker 1: years at this facility.
Speaker 2: I believe that was the case.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he's supposed to listen, right, isn't he
Speaker 1: supposed to listen to them? I mean, he's making the
Speaker 1: best judgment he can, but he has to depend on
Speaker 1: some experts that's why I'm trying. I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: this out. They saw something in her over the past
Speaker 1: decade that thought she was ready to take the next step.
Speaker 1: She did. She hadn't been in here long and she
Speaker 1: walked out of the place. Don't get me wrong. She
Speaker 1: didn't just walk out and go to McDonald's when she
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to. This took effort, intent and cut off
Speaker 1: her monitoring device.
Speaker 2: Yes, and okay, so prosecutors in the spring, we're warning
Speaker 2: about this man who she was having communications with, violent
Speaker 2: communications with. Well, turns out we don't know if it's
Speaker 2: the same man. But she was found last night at
Speaker 2: a truck stop in Illinois. This is more than one
Speaker 2: hundred miles away from the group home she was supposed
Speaker 2: to be in in Wisconsin. She was found just outside
Speaker 2: of Chicago with a forty two year old man who
Speaker 2: police interestingly are saying they will not provide his name.
Speaker 2: They will not provide a booking photo or any details
Speaker 2: of his involvement, but we know he was charged with
Speaker 2: criminal trespassing and obstructing identification.
Speaker 1: Wait, a refusal to identify him doesn't make what's the
Speaker 1: logic there?
Speaker 2: We don't know in all of the media reports. Obviously, reporters,
Speaker 2: journalists are trying to figure out who this guy is,
Speaker 2: this forty two year old man, and police said, we're
Speaker 2: not going to tell you why. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry. I didn't think, like why because of this,
Speaker 1: because of some privacy, because of something same, what could
Speaker 1: composing on?
Speaker 2: Perhaps they feel like he could.
Speaker 1: Be maybe the investigation is to.
Speaker 2: The investigation into what was going on between him and
Speaker 2: Amanda Geyser. I mean, this Morgan Geyser, this might actually
Speaker 2: have a I mean you would think it would have
Speaker 2: an impact on whether or not she gets to now
Speaker 2: stay in this group home, if she has to go
Speaker 2: back to the mental health facility, if she has to
Speaker 2: go to prison.
Speaker 1: But is this not an automatic she's out of that
Speaker 1: you lose your group home?
Speaker 2: Think that would be the case. She is being charged.
Speaker 2: We don't know exactly what it is yet, but look
Speaker 2: this is you could see her attorney, her parents, they
Speaker 2: were pleading with her, like, we fought so hard to
Speaker 2: secure your freedom, and look what you've just gone and done.
Speaker 2: So yeah, she was on her way out and she decided, yeah,
Speaker 2: to willfully cut off her electronic monitoring device. And take
Speaker 2: off with a forty two year old man. And how
Speaker 2: she I guess, I guess when you're in a group home,
Speaker 2: I don't know what the rules are, how strict they are,
Speaker 2: who you can communicate with, where you can go, how
Speaker 2: long you can be out, But certainly she willfully went
Speaker 2: against the rules.
Speaker 1: Any this was only happening. Was she only talking to
Speaker 1: this guy while at the group home. No, she got
Speaker 1: privileges in the psychiatric org to talk to who she
Speaker 1: wants to.
Speaker 2: So all we can go by is what the prosecutors
Speaker 2: said when they had that hearing in the spring whether
Speaker 2: or not she would be transferred to this group home,
Speaker 2: and they said that they had proof that she had
Speaker 2: violent communications with a man outside the facility. So that's
Speaker 2: interesting to me. When you're in a mental facility being
Speaker 2: held there for an attempted murder, I'm surprised that you're
Speaker 2: allowed to have outside communication with random people.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe she was violating privileges. Maybe she was
Speaker 1: doing this and she wasn't supposed to be doing this,
Speaker 1: but I figured.
Speaker 2: That, but it didn't hurt her in terms of her
Speaker 2: next step towards freedom, which is interesting to me, and
Speaker 2: especially this is a young woman.
Speaker 1: Wait, they didn't find out about it, and they knew
Speaker 1: about it before before she was released. That's right, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor is making that correct.
Speaker 2: And so my point too here is you've got a
Speaker 2: young woman who has clearly proven that she is easily
Speaker 2: influenced by the Internet, because that is how this whole
Speaker 2: thing started. And can you imagine being the victim in
Speaker 2: this case, Peyton Leitner and her family, she survived this
Speaker 2: vicious attack on her own by crawling out of the woods.
Speaker 2: We can get into this crime because I had forgotten
Speaker 2: all of the details. But now you're hearing this old
Speaker 2: ex friend who tried to kill you and left you
Speaker 2: for dead, just escaped the group home she was in.
Speaker 2: That had to be a very scary twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where's she going? Where's she headed? Does she want
Speaker 1: to finish in the day? Yeah? Mean you have to
Speaker 1: be thinking about that, and I don't. I mean, having
Speaker 1: kept up with this young lady and what she's been
Speaker 1: doing in the mental institute for the past ten years,
Speaker 1: the progress she's made, I haven't, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, But how do you go? Because yes, it's actually
Speaker 2: been less than ten years she was at this mental
Speaker 2: health facility. How do you go from being convicted to
Speaker 2: forty years up to forty years at a mental health
Speaker 2: facility and released into a group home in less than
Speaker 2: ten That also has to be alarming. I'm imagining being
Speaker 2: the parents of Peyton Leitner and a family spokesperson actually
Speaker 2: spoke out while she was on a LAMB and then
Speaker 2: had a statement when she was recaptured. But it speaks
Speaker 2: to where they were. I was thinking, Wow, it seems
Speaker 2: crazy to all of us. It has to seem like
Speaker 2: an abomination of justice to them.
Speaker 1: Well, the point of the system, right is supposed to
Speaker 1: be rehabilitation, and with somebody's mental has been deemed that
Speaker 1: have some mental defect, or they put her there and
Speaker 1: not in prison. They put her there and not in
Speaker 1: a child or a juvenile facility. They put her there
Speaker 1: and instead of they made some determination that something is
Speaker 1: not right with her mentally, this is where she needs
Speaker 1: to be for us to give her care. Is the
Speaker 1: point of the care not to heal, not to get
Speaker 1: you to a better place. Or you think, yeah, we
Speaker 1: just spend your time here until we let you go
Speaker 1: out into the world while you're still got mental issues.
Speaker 1: So isn't the point supposed to be. Rehabilitation is supposed
Speaker 1: to be to get her better.
Speaker 2: I thought in this country it was retribution before rehabilitation.
Speaker 2: I thought that we were first holding people accountable for
Speaker 2: the crimes they commit. And when you commit an adult
Speaker 2: crime like that, there needs to be some form of punishment.
Speaker 2: And yes, of course, we would all want folks to
Speaker 2: be rehabilitated. We would all want folks to be able
Speaker 2: to improve and then become actually contributing members of society.
Speaker 2: But are some people you don't know who is capable
Speaker 2: of that and who is not. And it's important to
Speaker 2: note Morgan Geyser and the other sixth grade classmate, Anissa Weyer,
Speaker 2: who was egging her on, was watching while the stabbing
Speaker 2: was going on. They were initially charged as adults. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that they were initially charged as adults and
Speaker 2: they pleaded guilty to stabbing Lightner and then they're guilty
Speaker 2: please were vacated because they were found not guilty by
Speaker 2: reason of mental disease or defect. And that's when both
Speaker 2: of them were sent to mental health facilities instead of
Speaker 2: to prison.
Speaker 1: So that's the point there is, it's not always Yes,
Speaker 1: rehabilitation has to start first, right, you can't have folks retribution,
Speaker 1: as you said, if you're deemed not mentally there when
Speaker 1: you committed the crime. Those rules and those laws are
Speaker 1: there for a reason. Our system, if we are to
Speaker 1: trust it, made a determination that something is wrong with
Speaker 1: these two twelve year olds that went beyond them having
Speaker 1: full responsibility for their actions because of some mental defect.
Speaker 1: Let's get that worked out, okay, I mean I have
Speaker 1: to trust that that's the way the system is supposed
Speaker 1: to work. Thank goodness, nobody got injured or heard or
Speaker 1: killed in this particular one. But there's so much How
Speaker 1: many others like this are there? How many other times
Speaker 1: has someone done this and this just happens to be
Speaker 1: high profile. Maybe this is an indication of how jack
Speaker 1: our system is that something like this can happen When
Speaker 1: you have someone who tried who stab somebody nineteen times
Speaker 1: and the escape plan was just a pair of scissors,
Speaker 1: that's uh, probably should be disturbing.
Speaker 2: And the Lightner family after she was apprehended, well, first
Speaker 2: of all, while she was on the run, she was
Speaker 2: saying they were working closely with police to make sure
Speaker 2: that they were safe. So they obviously were given some
Speaker 2: sort of protection while Geyser was on the lamb, And
Speaker 2: then they said the family would like to thank all
Speaker 2: of the law enforcement entities involved in the efforts to
Speaker 2: apprehend Morgan. The Lightner family also wishes to think the
Speaker 2: outpouring of support from family, friends, and well wishers who
Speaker 2: have contacted them during this difficult time. That was interesting
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how she's I mean, how is
Speaker 1: she doing at twenty three? But you don't it's scary.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was an attempted murderer on the loose.
Speaker 1: And if you're the family of the person she attempted
Speaker 1: to murder, yeah, that's a I don't know where the
Speaker 1: family is. This all happened in Wisconsin, the original crime,
Speaker 1: and this young lady had gone over to Illinois. But
Speaker 1: what was she doing? Where was she going? What was
Speaker 1: the point? I haven't seen anything about that yet. What
Speaker 1: was the motive it could have been? Could it have
Speaker 1: been innocent? Right? If she's not all there or not right?
Speaker 1: Maybe she's influenced. The guy wants to take her and
Speaker 1: go get married somewhere, take her to a nice restaurant.
Speaker 1: Who knows, I just know. But is it always do
Speaker 1: we have to assume the faarious attempt. Yeah, because she's
Speaker 1: attempted murder.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I just have to go back to the
Speaker 2: prosecutor's original concern that she was having violent communications with
Speaker 2: a man and was reading books with themes of sexual
Speaker 2: sadism and murder. So that that is concerning, Like, no
Speaker 2: matter what. So when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about the crime. I just a refresher because this
Speaker 2: is worth remembering, just in terms of what the crime
Speaker 2: actually entailed, and whose Slenderman actually is and where the
Speaker 2: other girl in all of this, the other twelve year
Speaker 2: old where is she? What happened to her? And continuing
Speaker 2: our conversation on this story that got a lot of
Speaker 2: folks attention over the weekend. Now twenty three year old
Speaker 2: Morgan Geyser, who was a part of that vicious, heinous
Speaker 2: Slenderman attack on her at the time she was twelve.
Speaker 2: She viciously stabbed her twelve year old friend and classmate
Speaker 2: nineteen times, alongside another young twelve year old girl who
Speaker 2: was standing by and egging them on. She escaped from
Speaker 2: a group home, and you could say escaped, but she
Speaker 2: was on her way to securing her freedom. She was
Speaker 2: placed from a mental institution where she had been for
Speaker 2: the past decade, and then released to a group home
Speaker 2: where she eventually was on her way to being released
Speaker 2: fully into society. But she cut off her ankle bracelet
Speaker 2: and took off with a forty two year old man,
Speaker 2: and prosecutors had a lot of concerns about where her
Speaker 2: head was, where her focus was, given a book she
Speaker 2: was reading in communication she was having with a man
Speaker 2: while she was inside the facility, and so here we are.
Speaker 2: She has been apprehended. But it's important to go back
Speaker 2: and actually remember this crime in twenty fourteen. This was
Speaker 2: sadistic and to see it happen among twelve year olds
Speaker 2: is just more than.
Speaker 1: Appalling, it's inexplicable. I have a twelve year old got
Speaker 1: to this point to twelve year old girls, and it's
Speaker 1: almost to a point you have to wonder, are they well?
Speaker 1: I say, okay, I ain't saying what's wrong with them,
Speaker 1: but something is off, something is not right, and that's
Speaker 1: maybe why they ended up where they ended up in
Speaker 1: mental facilities. But the details of this, I know girls
Speaker 1: and young girls and young teenagers and young kids. These
Speaker 1: are tweens, right, I know they can be easily influenced.
Speaker 2: You have a twelve year old.
Speaker 1: This is other level stuff. The links they went through
Speaker 1: to do this for a fictional character.
Speaker 2: These are sixth graders, and you know what, they were
Speaker 2: friends too, That's what's so scary. So this was Morgan
Speaker 2: Geyser who we've been talking about, Anissa Wire and then
Speaker 2: the victim, Peyton Lightner. But they were all at a
Speaker 2: slumber party and it was I believe Morgan's birthday, and
Speaker 2: so they told her they wanted to play a game
Speaker 2: of hide and seek in the woods. But they planned
Speaker 2: this out, they said. Initially Geyser said they were going
Speaker 2: to stab her while she was sleeping, but they waited
Speaker 2: until the next morning, went out into the woods and
Speaker 2: they well they well, Geyser stabbed her and Wire watched
Speaker 2: nineteen times, left her for dead, walked back home and
Speaker 2: went about their business. Meantime, Lightner literally crawled to safety
Speaker 2: and went to the hospital with life threatening injuries, and
Speaker 2: remarkably she survived. But it's all about it.
Speaker 1: That was incredible to me that that young lady, how
Speaker 1: she again nineteen stab wounds. I mean they're not all
Speaker 1: deep penetrating, but still you got Staff nineteen with a
Speaker 1: kitchen knife. It seemed impossible when you hear nineteen like
Speaker 1: how she survived that?
Speaker 2: And so yes, they all claimed that they were trying
Speaker 2: to impress and prove that this slender Man was real.
Speaker 2: And look, you go online and try to figure out
Speaker 2: who slender Man is. These are there are stories that
Speaker 2: have taken over for quite some time, but right around
Speaker 2: I think just two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: they started to to come up everywhere and there was
Speaker 2: a web series Marble Hornets.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that, Marble Hornets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it established the idea that there were humans
Speaker 2: who could fall under slender Man's influence. And so they
Speaker 2: talk about slender Man. If you don't know who he is.
Speaker 2: He's this tall, thin, fictional character who wears a suit,
Speaker 2: has tentacle like arms. He wears a dark suit and
Speaker 2: a tie, and he targets children and young adults. And
Speaker 2: this is just supposed to I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was meant to scare kids, some sort of urban legend
Speaker 2: sort of thing that these kids fell under this belief,
Speaker 2: and there was some sort of a website where you
Speaker 2: could prove that he was real. And so by doing
Speaker 2: this they were trying to prove that he was real,
Speaker 2: that he was going to somehow acknowledge this sacrifice they
Speaker 2: had made in his honor. It was just bizarre.
Speaker 1: Boy. So they tell you got to know what your
Speaker 1: kids are doing online? Right? That's wild? And it was influenced.
Speaker 1: Were they impressionable enough? I don't know, but to take
Speaker 1: these extremes, even if you went out into the forest
Speaker 1: on your own to look for the guys. One thing.
Speaker 1: But it's just I never got real answers to this story.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: It's like, look, you can I think think about Sabine
Speaker 2: and sweet Sabine, Like could she be easily influenced to
Speaker 2: think something real that wasn't? Maybe not, but say even
Speaker 2: she was, don't you have to have something in you
Speaker 2: then to be able to do that to your friend.
Speaker 2: That's the scary thing. That's the scary thing. And I
Speaker 2: mentioned the other young woman a Nissa Wire again, she
Speaker 2: was the one who watched and goaded on Morgan Geyser
Speaker 2: to continue the stabbing. She was sentenced up to twenty
Speaker 2: five years at a psychiatric institute, but in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one she was granted supervised release. So she was nineteen,
Speaker 2: so she got off sooner and quicker, and we haven't
Speaker 2: heard from her at all. And look, I don't know
Speaker 2: if that punishment fits that crime either. It's just this
Speaker 2: is they did not spend the time that they were
Speaker 2: sentenced to. I guess it's up to so it's discretionary.
Speaker 2: But certainly these young women, it's a little scary to
Speaker 2: think about them being out in the world given what
Speaker 2: they were convicted of doing.
Speaker 1: She's back, took twenty four hours. Wonderful. We'll get more
Speaker 1: answers about this, and certainly wonder if we will hear
Speaker 1: who this guy is that she was with.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that most folks aren't going to let
Speaker 2: this go, at least journalists and certainly in the local area.
Speaker 2: You think people are going to be in media outlets
Speaker 2: are going to be asking for answers in terms of
Speaker 2: who this man is, what his role was, and what
Speaker 2: is now going to happen to Morgan Geyser. But we
Speaker 2: will make sure to keep you updated on all of
Speaker 2: what's going on in this case, in this slender Man escape.
Speaker 2: But thank you so much for listening to us, everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ. Holmes, and we'll talk to
Speaker 2: you soon.