Teen in Slender Man Stabbing to Seek Release

Anissa Weier, now 19, helped a friend attack a third girl in 2014
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2021 2:35 PM CST
Teen in Slender Man Stabbing to Seek Release
In this Dec. 21, 2017, file photo, Anissa Weier is led into court for her sentencing in Waukesha, Wis.   (Michael Sears/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP, File)

It's been nearly seven years since the jarring Slender Man stabbing, and now one of the two teens involved is about to ask for her release from a mental health facility. Anissa Weier, now 19, was 12 at the time she hatched a murder plot with a friend against a third girl to appease the fictional horror character, reports the AP. Victim Payton Leutner survived the attack, during which Morgan Geyser stabbed her 19 times in the woods. Leutner and Geyser also were 12 at the time. Weier has spent more than three years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin after pleading guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. On Wednesday, she will ask a judge for conditional release from her 25-year sentence.

On the night of the attack, the girls pinned Leutner to the ground in the woods during what was supposed to be a game of hide-and-seek. Weier has admitted that she gave the knife to Geyser and said, "Go ballistic, go crazy." The pair left Leutner to die in the woods, but she made it out and was found by a passing bicyclist. Guyser, who has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia, is serving a 40-year sentence in a mental health facility. In order for Weier to be released, a judge will have to conclude that she poses no risk to herself or others, per the Journal Sentinel. If released, she will be monitored until age 37. She can make a new request for release every six months if denied. (Leutner has spoken publicly about her ordeal.)

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