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Photographer explains how 'Icarus' photo was caught

admin - Latest News - November 29, 2025
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Photographer explains how ‘Icarus’ photo was caught



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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.
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Oct. 24, 2025, 5:06 PM EDTBy Katherine Doyle and Matt DixonWASHINGTON — As soon as Donald Trump took office for his second term, he began using his clemency power at a steady clip. It started with the pardons of the roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and continued each month, with more pardons or commutations. At the end of May, he had issued 73 clemency actions, not including all the Jan. 6 defendants. Trump once called the power to pardon “a beautiful thing.”“You got to get it right,” he told reporters during his first term. But after May, the pardons stopped. Four people familiar with discussions around pardons told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process, and two of those people said the White House paused on Trump issuing pardons in order to get more control over matters. These people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak candidly. Another factor has been the president’s crowded agenda, which included foreign and domestic priorities, one of those people said. Two senior White House officials said chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has played a central role in reviewing pardons, became more outspoken after reports emerged that lobbyists and consultants were advertising themselves as offering access to Trump’s pardon authority for steep prices. Those officials said Wiles pushed back hard against these efforts and tightened the process to distance it from those attempting to broker influences. While it’s legal to engage lobbyists on these issues, Wiles didn’t like the look. That meant making clear to those on the outside that she would not tolerate people trying to profit from the clemency process, one of the senior White House officials said. “Chief of staff Wiles does not mess around, especially when it comes to outsiders wrongly tossing around proximity to the president to gain fortune and favor,” this person said.Urgency grew after Bloomberg reported in August that two intermediaries seeking to cash in on a burgeoning pardon economy were floating a plan to Roger Ver, a man known as Bitcoin Jesus for his early crypto evangelism, to secure a presidential pardon for him in exchange for $30 million. The White House denied any knowledge of the plan to Bloomberg. The report set off alarms inside the White House, the two White House officials and two others familiar with the discussions told NBC News. Last week, Ver reached a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve the federal tax charges brought against him. He has not yet been granted a pardon.In late May, NBC News also reported that some lobbyists had received proposals as high as $5 million to press cases before the president. More recently, an associate of former Sen. Bob Menendez, who is accused of bribing the senator with gold bars, paid $1 million to a Washington lobbyist with ties to Trump to help secure clemency, three sources told NBC New York. Lobbying disclosure filings described the payment as for “executive relief.”Fred Daibes hired lobbying firm with ties to President Trump02:08Clemency actions picked up again this month. Last week, Trump commuted the seven-year prison sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, with the timing of the move surprising even some close allies. Trump granted another pardon this week, for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of crypto currency exchange Binance, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering. Binance has ties to World Liberty Financial, which has administered many of the Trump family’s crypto projects. A pardon was not certain; Zhao’s lawyers had received conflicting signals, at times believing it would happen and other times not, a person familiar with the discussions said. In confirming Zhao’s pardon, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Zhao had been unfairly prosecuted by then-President Joe Biden’s administration, declaring that “[t]he Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”The Zhao pardon came after Trump met with Wiles and White House Counsel David Warrington on Monday again to review a new slate of candidates. The senior White House official said more people are poised for relief once the president has an opportunity to sign them. A person familiar with the discussions said that now, Wiles “is at least controlling the timing” of pardons.Others seeking relief from the president include Pras Michel, a member of the Fugees who was convicted in 2023 in a foreign lobbying and campaign finance case, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions. This person said they believe Michel is likely to receive a pardon once the president’s signings pick back up again.According to the two senior White House officials, clemency requests are received and reviewed by the White House counsel’s office, with Warrington briefing Wiles before the two meet with Trump to present a slate of candidates for the president’s consideration. Alice Johnson, who became a prominent advocate for criminal justice reform after Trump commuted her life sentence during his first term and now serves as the president’s “pardon czar,” advises the process, focusing on drug-related cases, among others, one of the officials said. The Justice Department also sends pardon requests to the White House counsel. Trump’s pardons have faced plenty of criticism, including, at times, from his own allies. Santos was released from prison this week after serving just months into his seven-year sentence. Last year, he pleaded guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. His short time in political life was plagued by accusations of campaign finance violations and lying about his qualifications. Republican lawmakers who voted to expel Santos from Congress spoke out after Trump commuted Santos’ sentence.“The President has the discretion to commute sentences for people convicted of federal crimes. In this case, Santos willingly pled guilty to these crimes and then complained about having to serve his sentence,” Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., said. “The victims of his crimes still have not been made whole, including the people he stole from and the voters he defrauded. He has shown no remorse. The less than three months that he spent in prison is not justice.”George Santos speaks out for first time since prison release01:02Presidents largely have unchecked pardon power, and past presidents have also faced criticism for using it to assist allies. Biden received blowback, including from many Democrats, for issuing pre-emptive pardons for his family on his way out of office. But Trump has issued far more pardons at a consistent pace, with many going to allies or well-connected individuals. After Trump pardoned a Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery, who was a supporter of the president, Trump’s pardon attorney, Ed Martin, posted on X: “No MAGA left behind.”“Policy-wise, Trump is one of the few presidents who tried to commit to doing these pardons regularly,” one of the sources familiar with the discussions said. This person and another close to the White House said they expected the process to resume with pardons issued on symbolic dates — Juneteenth, July 4, Labor Day or before the start of the government shutdown — but it never did. The delay was not strictly due to concerns around conflicts of interest, one of the senior White House officials said, but also the president’s lack of signing time. Trump’s clemency decisions have included well-known figures and political allies — such as former reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, as well as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was once a contestant on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV show — and people whose cases revisit questions about political persecution and fairness — including a group of anti-abortion protesters and Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden who spoke out against the former president’s son. Marc Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota who is an expert on clemency, said every president favors certain types of cases. With Barack Obama, it was narcotics defendants, and with Trump, it’s white-collar cases. “What merits examination is the process being used right now. Like Biden at the end of his term, Trump appears to be using an informal, closed and opaque process to evaluate petitioners (or those like George Santos who did not even file a petition), while ignoring the thousands of people who followed the rules and submitted a clemency petition through the pardon attorney,” Osler said. “I agree with Trump that the old evaluation system for clemency needed to be demolished; but now it needs to be remade into something accessible, fair, transparent and lasting.”Leavitt said that “the Trump White House takes this process and responsibility extremely seriously.” “Each clemency request is intensely vetted and reviewed, and President Trump ultimately makes every clemency decision,” she added. After speculation rose this week, the White House said there have not been discussions of clemency for Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was convicted in July on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but was acquitted on more damning charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Combs’ lawyers have previously told NBC News they have been pursuing a pardon for their client.“There’s been no paper pushed on it,” one of the White House officials said, referring to the formal vetting process required for clemency applications. Trump has occasionally declined to go forward on recommended cases, a senior White House official said, and sometimes requests additional information before making a final decision. The president has been outspoken granting clemency to those he believes were treated unfairly by the justice system, and seekers have found success in drawing attention to their treatment. When Trump commuted Santos’ sentence, he remarked on the “long stretches of time” the former congressman had spent in solitary confinement, saying Santos, “by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated.”Recognizing Trump’s instincts for what he views as deliverance, one of the people familiar with discussions expressed hope that Trump would not extend similar leniency to Combs, who was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. On Oct. 3, a federal judge sentenced Diddy to 50 months in prison.“I hope he doesn’t pardon Diddy,” this person said. “But I could see him doing it because he might think he’s served enough.” Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Matt DixonMatt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.Melanie Zanona contributed.
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