Nov. 29, 2025, 7:00 AM ESTBy Mirna Alsharif and Doha MadaniThe day after Morgan Geyser cut off her ankle monitor and fled her group home, Illinois police unknowingly found her crouched against a wall at a truck stop two hours away Sunday night.Huddled next to her friend, Geyser told officers that she was worried about being separated from 43-year-old Chad Mecca, who was shaking from the cold and occasionally struggling to speak. The pair evaded questions about their identity as Geyser told officers that she had done “something really wrong.”Geyser, 23, later “suggested that officers could ‘just Google’ her name” to find out who she is, according to the Posen Police Department incident report.An internet search would reveal that 11 years prior, Geyser stabbed her sixth-grade classmate, Payton Leutner, more than a dozen times with a kitchen knife to appease the fictional horror character “Slender Man” while their other friend, Anissa Weier, watched. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.The case spent years making national headlines and spawning documentaries as Geyser endured a prolonged court battle. A jury found that Geyser was mentally ill after her attorneys presented expert testimony that the girl was suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the stabbing. In an effort to avoid prison, Geyser agreed to a plea deal in 2017 that would have her institutionalized instead.Though she had been sentenced to a maximum of 40 years in a mental institution, Geyser had just been granted conditional release in January after spending seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin. She fled the group home she’d been placed in over fears of being separated from her friend, Mecca, according to body camera footage and police reports.Carrying a backpack and a pink journal with the words “homeless couple’s guidebook” written in it, police allege, the two took a Greyhound bus from Wisconsin on Saturday night. They were eventually found more than 165 miles away in Illinois and arrested Sunday evening. Mecca was later released on a citation and is due to appear in court Jan. 15. NBC News was unable to reach Mecca; it is unclear whether Mecca has retained an attorney. Urgent search underway for ‘Slender Man’ stabbing attacker01:26At her extradition hearing Tuesday, Geyser was brought out in a blue jumpsuit and dark glasses. She waived her extradition and will be held in Cook County without bail.Wisconsin has a month to take Geyser back to the state. Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese told reporters Monday that the state would have to decide whether to file a petition to revoke Geyser’s conditional release, a move they would support, she said.The Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said on Monday that they had not received a referral regarding Geyser’s case, but may receive one from the Madison Police Department “at some point.”An attorney for Geyser did not immediately respond to a request for comment.An attack ordered by ‘Slender Man’The May 31, 2014, attack on Leutner began as a Saturday morning game of hide-and-seek in the woods of a suburban Milwaukee park.Then, prosecutors say, Geyser and Weier pinned down Leutner before Geyser stabbed her 19 times. The knife barely missed an artery near her heart, coming “one millimeter away from certain death,” the criminal complaint said. After the attack, Geyser and Weier fled the scene, leaving Leutner to die. The middle schooler managed to crawl out of the woods and find a bicyclist on a sidewalk. Geyser and Weier were arrested five hours after the attack, still armed with the knife.During the trial, Geyser’s attorneys told the court that the girl had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is why she believed the fictional horror character “Slender Man” was speaking to her. Geyser believed the boogeyman would harm their families if they didn’t stab Leutner.Anissa Weier listens as her attorney Maura McMahon questions a witness in Waukesha County, Wis., in September 2017. Michael Sears / Pool via APWeier, who did not stab Leutner but was accused of “egging” Geyser on, pleaded guilty in 2017 to being a party to attempted second-degree homicide and was sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital. She was released in 2021.Geyser was 15 when she was sentenced to decades in a mental institution, spending nearly seven years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. In January, a judge ruled that she should be released to a group home.Three experts testified at the time that Geyser was no longer a threat to the public and had made considerable progress in her treatment.Wisconsin judge orders release of ‘Slender Man’ attacker02:08Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren upheld the conditional release plan in March after some objection from the district attorney’s office, which had concerns that Geyser had sent violent artwork to a man. It appeared that Geyser had stopped contact with that individual, Bohren said in his decision.“I don’t find that in and of itself a reason to find she’s at risk for herself or at risk to harm the community in a conditional release plan,” he said, adding that just because she participated in the contact “doesn’t mean she encouraged it.”Bohren also said that the group home would, in some ways, be “more strict” than being institutionalized, given the “substantial supervision” Geyser would be under.Details of Geyser’s conditional release are sealed, but her attorney, Tony Cotton, had previously told the court that there was difficulty finding Geyser a place to land. A letter filed by Cotton in August said that a home in Sun Prairie declined to take Geyser due to the “publicity surrounding the placement.”Disappearance from the group homePolice say Geyser was last seen around Kroncke Drive at 8 p.m. Nov. 22 with another adult. A little over an hour later, the Department of Corrections became aware that Geyser had tampered with her monitoring bracelet. By 11:30 p.m., authorities learned that Geyser had removed the ankle bracelet and was not at the group home. By around 9 p.m. the next day, she was found at the truck stop more than 165 miles away in Illinois with Mecca, who was also arrested and charged with criminal trespass and obstructing identification, according to the Posen Police Department. Geyser told officers that she met Mecca at a Wisconsin church a couple of months ago and that she was upset Mecca was unable to visit her at the group home, according to the Posen police incident report. Geyser alleged that she was treated poorly at the home, and that Mecca visited her there on multiple occasions by “climbing her window and sneaking in.”The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said it could not comment on Geyser, who is being treated at one of its facilities, because of patient privacy protections. The Department of Corrections is similarly limited when it has been contracted by health services for supervision and monitoring activities, it added.Geyser said Saturday that she and Mecca had taken the Greyhound bus from Wisconsin to Illinois and had discussed heading to Nashville, Tennessee, according to the incident report. It is not immediately clear what specifically motivated the two to leave Saturday. Body camera footage from Sunday night showed Geyser pleading with officers not to separate her from Mecca, asking if they would at least promise to let her say goodbye to Mecca “no matter what I did.”Geyser told officers in the footage that Mecca is transgender and repeatedly refers to Mecca using “she” and “her” pronouns. During the search, officers found the pink notebook in the backpack, according to the footage. One officer flipped through the journal and read out the words “homeless couple’s guidebook.”Mecca told ABC affiliate WKOW that they prefer to go by the name “Charly” and that Geyser ran away because of the visitation restrictions. The two had developed a strong friendship after meeting at church months ago, Mecca told the news station.After their Sunday truck stop arrest, body camera footage showed Geyser and Mecca being transported through the interior cameras of separate patrol cars. Geyser remained silent throughout her ride and looked out the window quietly.An officer talked with Mecca during their ride, saying that his colleagues would get them meals. Mecca thanked the officer and appeared to be dejected.“We really do just wanna be on our way, we’re sorry to have caused trouble,” Mecca said.The officer then told Mecca they would send the pair on their way once they find out who they are. Mecca simply responded, “That’s not gonna happen.” Mirna AlsharifMirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.Doha MadaniDoha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Pronouns: she/her.Emilie Ikeda contributed.