In 2018, I spent a lot of time in the dusty cafeteria of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in rural Wisconsin. I can still picture the forest mural that dominated one wall—its strange, unsettling scene of grinning squirrels with hollow black eyes, clumsily sponge-painted onto bumpy concrete—adjacent to which hung tourism posters advertising local attractions, a cruel irony for those incarcerated inside.
Once known as Northern Hospital for the Insane, Winnebago had seen drastic changes since its founding in the 1890s, when husbands and fathers could commit wives and daughters for “ailments” like anger or defiance, and treatments included dancing, gardening, and brandy. By the time I arrived, decades of de-institutionalization had reduced the hospital to a last resort for extreme cases, including women remanded for violent crimes like attempted murder and infanticide. The wards were understaffed, underfunded, and often managed by overworked technicians who relied on restraint boards and spit hoods to manage crises. Violence and mysterious deaths had become routine.
But I was just a visitor—there to sit with Winnebago’s youngest patient, 15-year-old Morgan Geyser, who had been 12 when she committed her crime. Our conversations about nail polish, books, Skittles, boys, and hair braiding revealed again and again the simple truth that she was a child. Her soft, high-pitched voice. Her self-consciousness. Her loneliness. She wanted her mother. My own daughter was four months old, and I liked Morgan as one does any child when newly fascinated by children. She and I had a lot in common—our shared Midwestern upbringing (Morgan spent her last night of freedom at the same roller rink where I first held hands with a crush), our obsession with writing, and our mutual distaste for the hospital’s eerie mural, especially its squirrels, which any honest person would describe as evil. But liking Morgan made me very sad, because for the next seven years, the idea of Morgan’s release seemed unimaginable—her crime was so shocking, the legal response so outsized and inhumane, that it was hard to envision a time when she might walk free.
But then, in February 2025, Morgan, now 22, was granted her release. And as the news broke, I found myself reflecting on the entire case—the years I had spent studying every detail. It felt as though the entire narrative of Morgan’s story, with all its complexity and contradiction, flashed before my eyes once again.
A Crime That Shocked the Nation
In 2014, at Morgan’s 12th birthday party, she and her neighbor, Anissa Weier, lured Morgan’s best friend, Payton Leutner, into the woods and brutally stabbed her 19 times during a game of hide-and-seek. Their motive? To appease Slenderman, a faceless internet demon the girls had read about on a horror fan fiction site, creepypasta.com, which they believed was a factual-ish source akin to Wikipedia.
In days and years to come, most people’s understanding of the crime would stop here; the Slenderman Stabbing, as it became known, was quickly boiled down to Slenderman and the number of stab wounds. But upon closer examination, Anissa and Morgan’s motive proved much more complex. Together, they had decided that Slenderman was causing Morgan’s strange visions, and the voices in her head, which would later be diagnosed as psychosis. And they believed the only way to survive his wrath was to sacrifice a human being in his name, like in Slenderman stories online. Afterward, they planned to live with him in Slender Mansion and be his servants.
Though the idea of living with a demonic murderer scared them, running away appealed to them even more deeply.
Minds Warped by Trauma
At home, Morgan faced a nightmare that made Slenderman pale in comparison, later revealing from behind bars that her father had been sexually abusing her for years. Anissa, too, was struggling. In jail, she described a childhood marked by neglect and accused her mother of incest. Leading up to the crime, she also faced an undiagnosed learning disability so severe that court-appointed doctors would later need to rule out brain injury. Compounding the neurological factors were interpersonal ones; Anissa was fixated on Morgan, who already had a best friend—Payton. This jealousy festered over months, with Anissa bullying Payton, wanting her out of the picture so Morgan could be hers alone.
Miraculously, Payton survived the attack, but that fact, along with so many others, got lost in the ensuing media storm. After the crime went viral, news reports focused almost exclusively on Slenderman and the number of stab wounds, fostering the erroneous belief, widespread to this day, that Morgan and Anissa committed murder—even the judge in Morgan and Anissa’s case has mistakenly referred to it as a homicide.
Against this backdrop of moral hysteria, Morgan’s mental illness, Anissa’s learning disability, and the severity of their punishments were buried in the noise. The second nightmare of this case—the adult prosecution of two 12-year-olds—went overlooked. What drew me to Morgan’s case was this second chapter—the one where two girls, their minds warped by trauma and delusion, now faced a combined total of over 100 years in adult prison. In most states, Morgan and Anissa would have entered the juvenile system and received therapeutic care and education. Instead, their schooling paused indefinitely in sixth grade, and they faced the grim reality of Taycheedah Women’s Prison, a violent, overcrowded facility where the waitlist for an anger management course ran 200 names long.
The Battle for Redemption
The practice of prosecuting children as adults largely stems from the “super-predator” theory, popularized in the 1990s by Don Dilulio Jr. Using fabricated research that leveraged racist stereotypes, Dilulio argued violent children could not be rehabilitated and that the only solution was to build more prisons (and churches). Though this theory was quickly debunked, it was even more quickly enshrined into law, both by both Republicans and liberal figures like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. While many states have since raised the minimum age for adult prosecution, Wisconsin remains home to the harshest laws in the nation—here, children as young as ten are automatically tried as adults in cases of violent crime.
For nearly four years, I watched Morgan and Anissa’s legal teams try, and fail, to convince the court of two crucial points: 1) that their clients were biologically children at the time of their crime, and 2) that mental illness is real. These facts should have been self-evident—impartial state psychologists had evaluated and diagnosed both girls, who were clearly prepubescent. Instead, the defense was met with two politically entrenched conspiracy theories that guided the prosecution’s strategy: 1) the belief that children become adults when they commit a serious crime ( the “adult crime, adult time” mantra, rooted in super-predator rhetoric, remained popular at the time) and 2) the absurd assertion that mental illness was a hoax. The resulting legal battle became a circus of pseudo-science and ignorance, with prosecutors comparing mental illness to a belief in Santa Claus, while Judge Michael Bohren kept the case in adult court, reasoning, inanely, “They get older every day, frankly.”
It’s worth noting that Judge Bohren, up for re-election at the time, was under immense pressure from one of Wisconsin’s most conservative districts, where voters were staunchly “tough on crime.” A Republican since his pro-Vietnam War days in college, Bohren sided with the prosecution at every turn. He even hired a professional stylist to shape his mustache before proceedings, which were packed with television crews—crews Bohren invited. While issuing his verdict that Morgan and Anissa’s case should remain in adult court, he sipped from a Ronald Reagan mug. Under his purview, Morgan was denied anti-psychotic medication for 19 months, a period during which she spiraled into a state of oblivion.
After years of senseless legal battles, Morgan and Anissa remained slotted for adult prison, and their defense teams fought for the only remaining humane option: a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) defense. While this would still place the girls in an adult facility, a locked hospital seemed a far better alternative to Taycheedah. Anissa was ruled NGRI, though her defense, which cited “folie à deux” (the madness of two), ignited local outrage. Soon after, Morgan struck a plea deal and was found NGRI in 2017. Bohren sentenced her to 40 years at Winnebago. Anissa received 25 years.
Though Anissa was released after seven years, it seemed unlikely that Judge Bohren would show Morgan the same clemency—especially given her role as the primary assailant. After filing and withdrawing two petitions for release, and having her third petition denied, Morgan’s legal team convened in court this past February or another conditional release hearing. By then, Morgan had spent eleven years behind bars—as one psychologist testified, “She is an individual who has essentially grown up in an adult psychiatric hospital.” At this point, it seemed almost impossible that Judge Bohren would change his stance. After all, Morgan now resembled the adult he had once prosecuted her as—what reason would he have to deviate from the will of his electorate? At the same time, public outrage over Morgan’s case had dwindled over the years, and right-wing Wisconsin residents had become far more focused on what they saw as an imminent threat of invasion by Mexican rapists. And Bohren, perhaps feeling the weight of time, was nearing retirement. This may have explained why, in a stunning turn, the man who had previously denied Morgan at every turn finally agreed to release her.
So… why the change of heart? What does Morgan’s upcoming release say about society’s changing attitudes about justice, punishment, and rehabilitation? About our belief in redemption?
On March 3, 2025, after spending her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood incarcerated in an adult psychiatric ward, Morgan will taste freedom. As she steps into the bright winter light, returning to a mother who hasn’t hugged her outside of a legal or medical setting in ten years, I can’t help but wonder: if this case had happened today—if the cultural shifts that ultimately secured her release had been in place at the time of her conviction—would she have ever been sent away at all?
Redefining Justice
In 2014, the Slenderman stabbing clicked with growing fears around unmonitored screen time. It also tapped directly into the rise of cancel culture, a cycle of daily outrage and collective punishment for even the most minor missteps—let alone an attempted murder. As social media and digital platforms amplified horrific stories, the media sensationalized Morgan’s crime, feeding into public anxieties about youth violence and a moral panic over technology’s unforeseen consequences. The judge and prosecution seized on the shock value to justify a harsh adult prosecution, a decision further fueled by a political climate increasingly hostile to reform and the growing economic pressures on the media industry, which favored sensationalism over nuanced storytelling.
By 2025, digital culture and technological revolutions had changed significantly. Whereas once we all clamored to discuss the same stories—news sites that have since dissolved still existed, and we were all caught up in loud, angry debates—today, for better or worse, we are more disunited, driven by hyper-personalized algorithms into the digital equivalent of sensory deprivation pods. We exist in echo chambers, engaging only with content curated to our tastes. Outrage is no longer social currency unless it aligns with one’s algorithmic profile.
In this environment of constant distraction, Morgan’s release has gone largely unnoticed. The same girl that online communities once clamored to execute—literally, they rallied for the death penalty—has quietly come of age, with her freedom approaching without much fanfare. Social media (for all of its faults) has also played a pivotal role since Morgan’s crime in destigmatizing mental health issues and raising awareness about neurodiversity. As public discourse has evolved, the tough-on-crime rhetoric that once dominated the legal battles of the early 2010s has given way to a more nuanced approach to juvenile justice. Between 2000 and 2020, juvenile incarceration rates in the U.S. plummeted by 77%, while the number of juveniles tried as adults dropped by 56%, signaling a shift toward rehabilitation over punitive measures. It’s difficult to say definitively how these broader shifts influenced Morgan’s unique legal journey, but it’s possible that the changing public opinion made the Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office, along with Judge Bohren, less inclined to pursue an uncompromisingly punitive approach.
A System in Transition
In Wisconsin, children as young as 10 are still tried as adults for violent crimes. But alterations to state legislature nevertheless suggest that significant change might still lie on the horizon. In 2018, following severe abuse allegations—including filmed incidents at juvenile facilities—Wisconsin passed Act 185, which mandated the closure of outdated juvenile prisons and called for smaller, regional facilities focused on rehabilitation—a movement in synch with broader national trends. Additionally, The Second Chance Bill, which seeks to raise the minimum age for adult prosecution, has garnered significant attention in Wisconsin, though it hasn’t yet succeeded. For years, activists like those in the Juvenile Justice Coalition have fought for the rights of minors, and while they’ve seen success in places like Michigan, Wisconsin remains a tough battleground. However, the fact that progress has been made at all suggests that Wisconsin’s deeply rooted conservatism might finally begin to shift. As someone who hails from that same state, once hailed as “The Good Land,” this progress offers a tentative hope—a faint echo of its once progressive roots.
We cannot overlook the gravity of Morgan’s crime or the pain she caused her victim. Yet the evolving conversation surrounding juvenile justice, mental illness, and rehabilitation offers the possibility of a path forward for her. Incarceration is often a lifelong sentence for many, especially children, burdening taxpayers and raising recidivism rates. But the lessons learned from Morgan’s case may offer the chance for healing. The system that failed her in 2014 is now shifting, and with these changes, my hope is that Morgan will finally receive the care and support that was once denied to her. Despite the weight of her past, I believe in the possibility of transformation—if given the right resources, the right opportunities, and a community willing to reconcile the truth of a crime with the possibility of redemption.
I still picture her at age 15, sitting in the Winnebago cafeteria, talking wistfully about the one hour each day she was allowed outside, weather permitting. She told me she loved watching the squirrels play—not the creepy ones sponge-painted on the walls, but the real ones, so alive and nimble, her fingers curled around the razor-wire-topped fence, wondering what it would feel like to ever be that free.
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Kathleen Hale is the author of Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls
