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Footage of the moment a fugitive convicted in the Slender Man stabbing case was captured by police has been released.
Morgan Geyser, 23, went on the run after cutting off her tag and escaping a lower security group home she had just been moved to.
Geyser was found guilty of stabbing a classmate to ‘please’ the fictional Slender Man character and was committed to a mental hospital for 40 years.
But she cut off her tag and fled with her transgender partner Chad ‘Charly’ Mecca, 43, after the group home threatened to separate them.
She was found at an Illinois truck stop on Sunday night, after they had been reported for loitering, according to the Posen Police Department.
When officers arrived, police say they found the two sleeping on the sidewalk. Geyser corrects officers on Mecca’s pronouns and initially refuses to give her name.
Under pressure she gives a fake name of Stephanie Greis but misspells it.
It comes back as no record on file, and she is confronted again by officers threatening her with arrest.
‘Are you wanted for murder?’, she is asked. ‘Please just let me go’, she begs.
‘I did do something wrong, she didn’t. She doesn’t know what I did,’ Geyser told cops. ‘I did something really wrong.’
‘Just let me say goodbye’, she asks officers to see Mecca one last time before they are separated. She is reassured that they are both going to the same police station.
Eventually, Posen police say Geyser told officers to ‘just Google’ her name.
That’s when they say the officers learned her identity and took both her and her partner into custody.
‘We are proud of the professionalism and diligence our officers demonstrated in bringing this situation to a safe conclusion and ensuring that a wanted escapee was located and returned to custody,’ police said in a news release.
Geyser appeared back in court on Tuesday to sign extradition papers to return her to Wisconsin, and officials said she would lose her conditional release once there.
Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, planned and attacked their classmate, Payton Leutner, in 2014 by stabbing her 19 times.
They decided to attack to ‘please’ the Slender Man – a fictional character described as a featureless, white faced person who hides in the woods and stalks children.
The three girls had a sleepover together and went to the park to play what Leutner was told was hide-and-seek.
Weier told Leutner to lie down and cover herself with leaves, which is when Geyser stabbed her multiple times with a kitchen knife in her chest, arms and legs.
One stab wound had cut through her diaphragm, and another narrowly missed her heart by less than a millimetre.
Leutner, who was left behind bleeding in the woods, had emergency surgery lasting six hours to save her.
In court, Geyser was described as ‘a fragile person’ with a long history of delusions that made her a risk to others.
She spoke briefly before she was sentenced, breaking down in tears, apologising to Leutner.
Geyser said: ‘I just want to let Bella (Leutner) and her family know that I’m sorry and I hope she’s doing well.’
A spokesperson for Leutner’s family also released a statement Sunday night about Geyser’s disappearance, saying they were aware of the situation and that ‘Payton and her family are safe and are working closely with local law enforcement to ensure their continued safety.’
Weier was sentenced to up to 25 years in a mental institution.
Geyser will likely face escape charges in Wisconsin, the Posen police chief announced during a press conference and will go before a judge at the Cook County Courthouse.
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