We know now more about Chad “Charly” Mecca, the 43-year-old found with Slender Man stabber Morgan Geyser, behind a truck stop in Illinois, after Geyser escaped from her supervised group home in Wisconsin.
On Saturday, November 22, 2025, Geyser, 23, fled her group home with Mecca. According to WTMJ Milwaukee, Geyser told police she met Mecca at church a few months earlier, and since her home would not allow her to visit, she repeatedly snuck in through her window, including the night Geyser vanished.
(Mecca identifies as a transgender. Police reports call Mecca “he” while Geyser calls Mecca she or “Charly” in her statements. Early reports called Mecca 42, but her correct age is now confirmed as 43.)
Mecca: Geyser escaped “because of me”
In police interviews, Geyser admitted she helped her cut off the ankle monitor with scissors the night she fled, and that their original plan was to travel by bus to Nashville. Mecca later said she escaped “because of me.” They ran out of money and slept on the sidewalk behind the truck stop in Posen, Illinois, where police found them while performing a welfare check.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections detected Geyser’s monitor went offline, but that alert wasn’t immediately escalated to local law enforcement until about 12 hours later, before the group home reported her missing. Questions remain about how someone with Geyser’s history could leave so easily, and how Mecca was able to sneak in through her window multiple times undetected.
Some reports call Mecca Geyser’s romantic partner, but while they were close, the exact nature of their relationship is unknown. Mecca reportedly said she helped Geyser escape because she didn’t like how her home treated her, and Geyser was concerned they would not allow her to visit.
Geyser: “Just Google me”
Once encountered, Geyser and Mecca gave officers fake names: She called herself “Stephanie Gries,” and she said “Charles Robertson,” according to Good Morning America. When pressed, Geyser reluctantly told police, “I did something very bad. Just Google me.”
Police took Geyser into custody and cited Mecca for criminal trespassing and obstructing identification. The Dane County District Attorney’s office will determine if new charges, such as a felony for tampering with a GPS tracking device to escape, will be filed against Geyser.
The Slender Man stabbing
In 2014, when Geyser was 12 years old, she and her then-friend Anissa Weier lured their classmate, Payton Leutner, into the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and stabbed her 19 times in an attempt to appease the fictional online horror figure “Slender Man.” Leutner survived, in what’s now called the “Slender Man Stabbing.”
The court later found Geyser not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and committed to psychiatric treatment; after years at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, she was granted conditional release and moved into a group home in March 2025.
As of Monday, November 24, 2025, Geyser was back in custody at Cook County Jail, Illinois, pending an extradition hearing scheduled for Tuesday, November 25. In Madison, the Waukesha County District Attorney’s Office has already voiced support for revoking her conditional release, meaning she could be sent back to a psychiatric institution. Meanwhile, Mecca, having been released on a citation, faces a court date in January.
Published: Nov 26, 2025 12:41 pm