Woman behind Slender Man stabbing fled facility ‘because of me’, friend says

A companion of Slender Man stabber Morgan Geyser who temporarily escaped from her Wisconsin group home says Geyser fled the facility out of fear that the two would no longer be able to visit each other. “She ran because of me,” Chad “Charley” Mecca – a transgender woman who was detained alongside Geyser at a truck stop just outside Chicago on Sunday night – said in a phone call to Wisconsin news outlet WKOW. Mecca made it clear that she only learned why Geyser wanted to flee after they were in Illinois but added: “At the end of the day, I followed what I thought was right. I stand by it.” For fleeing a group home in Madison where she was placed in March, the 23-year-old reportedly faces being returned to a psychiatric institution where she was sentenced after pleading guilty to repeatedly stabbing a middle school classmate in 2014 to delight the digital horror character Slender Man. The 43-year-old Mecca, meanwhile, is facing charges related to her and Geyser having been found sleeping on a sidewalk in Posen, Illinois. A report from Posen police indicates that Mecca and Geyser were potentially trying to make it to Nashville, Tennessee, when they were stopped by officers investigating a loitering complaint at a truck stop. The case has drawn attention because Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder after she stabbed school friend Payton Leutner 19 times. In 2014, when all three girls were 12 years old, Geyer and a friend, Anissa Weier, convinced Leutner to go with them to a park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, during a sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while being egged on by Weier. Leutner barely survived. Geyser and Weier later made international news upon telling investigators they had attacked Leutner out of service to the internet boogeyman Slender Man, having become convinced that he would hurt their families if they failed to carry out the stabbing. Slender Man is the imagined creation of online forum user Eric Knudson – an unnaturally tall, thin figure that was digitally edited by others into mostly mundane photos of children playing. The figure went on to appear in video games, online lore and even a 2018 movie. Weier and Geyser both ended up pleading guilty to attempted homicide. Geyser then was sent to a psychiatric institute in 2018 and in March was transferred to a group home in Madison. On Saturday, Geyser was reported missing after officials discovered she had apparently removed her court-mandated tracking monitor. She and Mecca made off south and were picked up roughly a day later about 170 miles away. Mecca, seen in a mugshot with blue hair and a low-cut pink top, later told WKOW that she believed leaving Madison with Geyser was the best way to keep Geyser safe. As Mecca put it to WKOW during the call reported on Monday, she told police that she had met Geyser two months earlier at church – and that the younger woman didn’t like her group home. Mecca alleged that Geyser was being mistreated. Mecca also said the home “started threatening to take away … visitation” privileges from Geyser. Mecca said that she and Geyser then met in a parking lot – and the younger woman expressed her desire to escape. “She sobbed – she’s like, ‘They’ll take away our visitation. Charly, please … you’re my best friend. And you know, you know that before you showed up, I was ready to drink bleach and just all this stuff,’” Mecca told WKOW. Geyser “made it clear if I didn’t go – whether or not – she was still going”, said Mecca, who is referred to as “he” in the Posen police but referred to by Geyser as “she”. “And [Geyser] was not going back to jail,” Mecca said. “And I know what that means.” Geyser on Tuesday waived her right to an extradition hearing, making it procedurally easier for Illinois authorities to return her to Wisconsin. Wisconsin prosecutors have expressed their hope that the conditional release Geyser was granted before her group home transfer is revoked and that she is re-institutionalized.