Wisconsin
Wisconsin judge sends Slender Man attacker back to mental health institution after group home escape
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin woman who almost killed her sixth-grade classmate to please the fictional horror villain known as Slender Man was ordered back to a state psychiatric hospital Tuesday after she escaped from her group home last month.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge K. Scott Wagner granted a state Department of Health Services request to revoke 23-year-old Morgan Geyser’s release privileges. Geyser told the judge through her attorney, Tony Cotton, last week that she would not fight revocation. Wagner then approved the request during a short hearing.
Cotton didn’t immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.
Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier lured their classmate, Payton Leutner, to a Waukesha park in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier cheered her on. A passing bicyclist discovered Leutner, who barely survived. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.
Geyser and Weier later told investigators they attacked Leutner in hopes of impressing Slender Man enough that he would make them his servants and wouldn’t hurt their families. Both of them were eventually committed to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute — Geyser for 40 years and Weier for 25 years.
Weier earned conditional release in 2021. Wagner granted Geyser conditional release this past September despite warnings from state Department of Health Services officials that she couldn’t be trusted.
Geyser was placed in a Madison group home. Authorities say that on Nov. 22 she cut off her GPS monitor and fled the state with a 43-year-old companion. Police arrested both of them the next day at a truck stop outside Chicago, about 170 miles (274 kilometers) south of Madison.
Geyser’s companion told WKOW-TV that the two of them became friends at church and had been seeing each other daily for the last month. Geyser decided to escape because she was afraid the group home would no longer allow them to see each other, the companion said.
Slender Man was created online by Eric Knudsen in 2009 as a mysterious figure photo-edited into everyday images of children at play. He grew into a popular boogeyman, appearing in video games, online stories and a 2018 movie.
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Dressed up like a hometown newspaper, the Wisconsin Transcript landed in Milwaukee-area mailboxes this month with the Capitol dome on the cover and a slogan running across the top: “Local News. Community. Faith. Events.”
Inside is a claim the Polish Center of Wisconsin says is false.
The publication, dated Aug. 6, was sent out days before Wisconsin’s primary for governor. The pages are filled with mugshots from Wisconsin jails, stories about Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany criticizing his Democratic opponents, and an “immigration tracker” listing the organizations it says got the most federal resettlement money in Wisconsin.
Third on the list is the “Polish Community Center (Milwaukee),” at $3,096,927.
However, the Polish Center of Wisconsin said it has never received federal immigration funds and does not run a resettlement program. It knows of no other Milwaukee-area group by that name.
The center is owned by the Polish Heritage Alliance, a nonprofit built around Polish cultural events and education. The group put out a public statement Aug. 11 debunking the publication’s claims.
“We chose to address the claim proactively because we believe Wisconsin voters, our members, donors, and the broader community deserve access to accurate information,” spokeswoman Lauren Nitka Adeniyi told Public Investigator.
The Polish Center still doesn’t know who to contact about the error. No publishers or writers are named in the publication.
Who is behind the Wisconsin Transcript?
This isn’t the first Wisconsin mailer with a publisher nobody can pin down.
The Wisconsin Transcript resembles other mysterious publications mailed to residents in recent years that look like local newspapers but are thinly reported and promote Republican candidates.
Critics call the genre “pink slime” journalism, because the publications are designed to pass as independent local news. Papers like these usually contain no bylines or contact information and lean on politicians’ posts and press releases instead of original reporting.
In October 2024, Catholic leaders across several dioceses announced they had no connection to the Wisconsin Catholic Tribune, after copies of the right-wing mailer landed in Wisconsin mailboxes ahead of the November presidential election.
Also in October 2024, Waukesha County residents received a publication called the Waukesha Times designed to look like an actual newspaper. Several stories conveyed false information targeting Democrats.
Researchers traced both publications to Metric Media, a network running over 1,200 politically-backed news sites across the United States bankrolled by conservative donors.
The Wisconsin Transcript lists a return address at 2045 W. Grand Ave. in Chicago, the same address used by the Waukesha Times.
However, the address is a virtual mailbox shared by hundreds of unrelated businesses, not a newsroom. Unlike the Waukesha Times, Wisconsin Transcript doesn’t appear on Metric Media’s site and doesn’t appear to have a website at all.
Mailer includes stories about Tom Tiffany, immigration and crime
Several stories in the publication are focused on Tom Tiffany, the Republican congressman running for governor.
One covers his criticism of his Democratic opponents on immigration and criminal justice. Another is about an endorsement from the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.
Caroline Briscoe, a campaign spokesperson, said Tiffany is not familiar with the Wisconsin Transcript and has never talked to the paper. The newspaper’s material was pulled from things Tiffany has already said publicly online, she said.
Other stories in the issue include a guide to green cards, a story on the Democratic Socialists of America’s role in Wisconsin politics, and a full page of local mugshots headlined “On the Wall.”
The mugshot page includes a note that the “Wisconsin Democratic Socialists of America” has called for abolishing the police and prison system.
Democratic Socialists of America has no statewide Wisconsin chapter. It organizes locally, with chapters in Milwaukee, Madison and northeast Wisconsin.
DSA’s national program does list abolishing police and prisons as a long-term goal. The immediate steps it lists are demilitarizing police departments and ending qualified immunity.
The other data in the Wisconsin Transcript’s “immigration tracker” also had issues.
There is no group called “Benevolent Community Services” in Madison, and the “Center for Veterans Issues” does not appear to operate out of Eau Claire. The YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee does not offer any resettlement programs.
The Wisconsin Transcript implies that Wisconsin spent $158.7 million in taxpayer funds to re-settle 17,606 refugees in fiscal year 2024.
Records show the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement allocated Wisconsin about $4.4 million in Refugee Support Services funding for fiscal year 2024. That money went to the state, not directly to individual nonprofits. The allocation was based on 2,453 people served over the two prior fiscal years.
Misinformation experts said one way to check if a newspaper is valid is to look for real bylines on stories. If no reporter or publisher is listed, that’s a sign it could be a “pink slime” publication.
Another is to look at who pays for it. To check whether a news publication is funded by a political party, the Tow Center maintains a list of partisan news sites and newspapers here.
Quinn Clark is a Public Investigator reporter. She can be emailed at QClark@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Quinn_A_Clark.
Sophie Carson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
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Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell gives his definition of successful 2026
Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell believes the Badgers can put themselves in a position where ‘November really matters.’
MADISON – It’s no secret that Colton Joseph is Wisconsin football’s presumed starting quarterback ahead of the 2026 season.
The Badgers’ No. 2 quarterback spot on the depth chart is a much different story.
Louisville transfer Deuce Adams and true freshman Ryan Hopkins have been competing for the second-team role through the first week of fall camp, and UW quarterbacks coach Kenny Guiton indicated that he does not see a frontrunner yet.
“You kind of go through the phase of spring ball,” Guiton said. “You get a chance to teach these guys how we do things and the way we want to go about things. And now you see early in fall camp, the kind of competition.”
Adams and Hopkins, Guiton said, are “really, really honing in on the competition and taking it on.”
Adams made his first start in 2025 and went 12-of-17 for 94 yards in his Cardinals’ 38-6 loss to SMU. He appeared in five other games as a reserve in 2025 and had one brief game appearance when he redshirted in 2024.
Guiton said the 6-foot-2 quarterback is someone “you can just tell played college ball.”
“No moment gets too high for him,” Guiton said. “No moment, he’s going to get too low on himself if there is a bad play. He’s just a guy that kind of stays neutral. I’m really pushing him to kind of come out of that comfort zone at times and lead more, but you can just tell nothing affects him.”
Hopkins has been on a quick ascent since enrolling ahead of the spring semester. The true freshman was a three-star recruit who ultimately chose the Badgers over Missouri. He also held offers from UCLA, Michigan State, Kentucky, Utah and Washington, among several other power-conference programs.
Guiton was especially complimentary of the dual-threat quarterback’s unusually high maturity as a first-year player.
“It’s really above the line, and I really appreciate him for that,” Guiton said. “He’s a guy that can naturally go out there and lead on a consistent basis. You know what to expect out of him. He’s not going to come out and be two different guys, one day to the next.”
Hopkins needs to work on relaxing in fall camp, Guiton said after an Aug. 13 practice that included an avoidable interception.
“I kind of felt like he got a little worked up in the last two days, to be honest,” Guiton said. “As competition goes and gets a little thicker, he wants to do great. … Is Coach going to coach you to be perfect? Yes. But at the end of the day, you’re going to make mistakes.”
The backup quarterback position has often been in the spotlight in Madison amid a litany of injuries at the position in recent seasons. Billy Edwards Jr. suffered a knee injury in Week 1 in 2025, and Tyler Van Dyke suffered a torn ACL in UW’s third game of 2024. Tanner Mordecai missed significant time in 2023 with a broken hand as well.
Aside from Joseph, Hopkins and Adams, UW also has Carter Smith and Danny O’Neil at the quarterback position. Smith started UW’s last three games of last season, and O’Neil has been working his way back from a leg injury that he suffered in UW’s Nov. 8 win over Washington.
Guiton’s comments about the candidates for the QB2 role followed the Badgers’ seventh practice of fall camp and came more than three weeks ahead of the Sept. 6 season opener against Notre Dame at Lambeau Field.
For as much as the competition is up in the air for now, though, Guiton is quite confident that a No. 2 quarterback will emerge by the end of fall camp.
“Basically in camp you get – what, 25, whatever it is – practices,” Guiton said. “Those are game days for those guys, and it’s game days for anybody that’s out there. So 25 games worth, I promise y’all I have enough film to know exactly which direction we want to go.”
WAUPACA (WLUK) — The Wisconsin Department of Transportation will temporarily close the intersection of US Highway 10 and Anderson Road in Waupaca County.
According to the DOT, another closure at the Wisconsin Highway 54 ramp from US Highway 10 caused an unsafe traffic pattern at Anderson Road. Wednesday, the DOT said it would limit turns at the intersection to only right turns. Thursday afternoon, the DOT determined the safety issue continued even with the intersection limited to right turns only prompting the full closure.
When the Wisconsin Highway 54 ramp reopens, Anderson Road will return to normal traffic patterns.
A map showing where the Anderson Road closure in Waupaca County will be. (WLUK image)
The DOT says the closure isn’t associated with the larger project scheduled to address turns at the Anderson Road intersection. That project is scheduled to begin in 2030.
Don’t get caught in traffic! Watch Melissa McCrady’s reports weekdays on Good Day Wisconsin and visit the Traffic section of fox11online.com. If driving, please have a passenger navigate the webpage.
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