WAUKESHA, Wis. – A Wisconsin girl who stabbed a classmate to curry favour with the fictional horror character Slender Man will be committed to a mental hospital for 40 years, a judge ordered Thursday, explaining his decision as “an issue of community protection.”

Judge Michael Bohren granted the maximum penalty that prosecutors had sought and discounted Morgan Geyser‘s youth – she was just 12 – at the time of the attack in 2014. But the judge dismissed the plea, saying, "What we can't forget is this was an attempted murder, it would have been murder but for just simply time and the interference of serendipity – that the knife wound was not placed in the exact position to kill her, that she didn't bleed to death and that somebody found her. At her sentencing, Geyser broke down in tears and said: "I just want to let Bella [the victim's nickname] and her family know that I'm sorry." Back in 2014, the case made national headlines when the girls were just 12 and lured their pal into a suburban Milwaukee park where Morgan brutally stabbed Payton while Anissa cheered her on in order to please the fictional horror character Slender Man. Morgan Geyser, now 15, was just 12-years-old when she and pal Anissa Meyer, also 16, lured their friend Payton Leutner, 16, into the woods where Morgan brutally stabbed her 19 times. Leutner was stabbed 19 times, but able to crawl to a nearby road where a passing bicyclist stopped to help her. Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier, both 12 at the time of the crime, lured their 12-year-old classmate into a park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where they stabbed her 19 times to impress the Slenderman, a boogeyman for the internet age. WATCH: Lawyer reaction of Jury verdict deeming girl was mentally ill in Slender Man case

Geyser and Weier said they carried out the attack to appease Slender Man, a fictional online horror character who they said they feared would otherwise harm them and their families. In December 2017, Weier, now 16, was sentenced to 25 years under a mental health institution's supervision, after a jury found her not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect after she had pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted intentional homicide, party to a crime. READ MORE: Wisconsin girl who stabbed classmate to please character Slender Man will avoid prison

Prosecutors presented testimony from a doctor who said Geyser reported still hearing voices from someone named “Maggie” as recently as September. The teen pleaded guilty in Oct. of 2017 to attempted first-degree intentional homicide to avoid serving prison time, but now she’s still going to spend the next 40 years locked away, just not behind prison bars.
Morgan Geyser is sentenced to 40 years in a mental institution for her role in the attempted murder of Payton Leutner.