Judge orders release of Wisconsin teen convicted of stabbing 12yo classmate in Slender Man case

Anissa Weier, 19, will be released from a Wisconsin mental hospital after being admitted over charges she stabbed a classmate in 2014 at the age of 12 to please the fictional character Slender Man.

Weier requested her release this year from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, claiming she no longer poses a threat, and Waukesha County Judge Michael Bohren has agreed and ordered her release in 60 days. Another hearing will take place in September. 

Bohren said Weier presents no “substantial risk of harm to others [or] herself, or serious property damage.” She will be granted conditional release and be held at the institute until her hearing in September, where a plan for her release will be put in place. 

Weier and friend Morgan Geyser lured classmate Payton Leutner into a park in May 2014, when all three were only 12 years old. Geyser stabbed Leutner repeatedly and Weier reportedly encouraged the violence. Geyser and Weier told investigators after the attack that the stabbing was carried out so they could become followers of the fictional Slender Man character and so he would not harm their families. Leutner survived the attack.

Geyser is serving a minimum 40-year sentence at a mental health facility, while Weier was sentenced to 25 years in 2017 after she pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide. 

Slender Man is a tall, faceless, fictional character that gathered a following online through the numerous horror stories written by various amateur writers. The character became a popular ‘creepypasta’ horror story – user-generated legends that are typically short and meant to come across as true. 

Weier and Geyser’s case is partly what helped the term ‘creepypasta’ reach the mainstream, as their story was covered in an HBO documentary and later partially inspired a horror film, ‘Slender Man.’ 

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