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A Waukesha County judge has approved a plea deal for a girl who stabbed her former sixth grade classmate and left her to die.
Judge Michael Bohren on Thursday accepted 15-year-old Morgan Geyser’s guilty plea to a charge of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, after she tearfully described the 2014 attack in court. Geyser recounted how she used a knife taken from home to stab Payton Leutner 19 times, and described how her friend Anissa Weier told the girl to lie down so she would bleed less, while the two girls left her behind.
Both Geyser and Leutner were 12 at the time and claimed they carried out the attack to please the fictional horror character known as “Slenderman.” Leutner survived, after she crawled out of a wooded area and was found by a passer-by.
Under the plea deal, prosecutors will not fight Geyser’s claim that she was mentally ill at the time and could not recognize that her actions were wrong. She will be committed to a state mental hospital, with prosecutors recommending she spend the next 40 years receiving treatment. A hearing on the length of her commitment will be held at a later date.
A jury determined last month that Weier was mentally ill at the time of the attack. She faces at least three-years in a state mental facility.