The friend arrested alongside 'Slender Man' stabber Morgan Geyser after her daring escape is a transgender man who claims the much younger Geyser ran ‘because of me.’
Chad "Charly" Mecca, 43, was caught with the 23-year-old escapee at a truck stop in Posen, just outside Chicago, on Sunday night—about 24 hours after the troubled stabber fled her care facility over 150 miles away in Wisconsin.
The suspect—pictured in a mug shot with disheveled blue hair and a low-cut pink top—took responsibility for the escapee in an interview with local TV station WKOW.
Authorities caught Chad "Charley" Mecca, 43, alongside "Slender Man" stabber Morgan Geyser at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois. Posen Police Department
"She ran because of me," Mecca admitted, taking full responsibility for the escape. Posen Police Department
"She ran because of me," Mecca admitted, facing citations for criminal trespassing and obstructing identification.
Mecca claimed that Geyser ran from her group home after being banned from seeing her transgender best friend.
“She sobbed, she’s like, ‘They’ll take away our visitation. Charly, please… you’re my best friend,'” Mecca said of a phone call as she fled.
“She already made it clear if I didn’t go, whether or not she was still going, and she was not going back to jail. And I know what that means,” Mecca said.
Police reports suggest the pair were possibly on their way to Nashville. ISN 12 News
"The end of the day, I followed what I thought was right. I stand by it," Mecca said, who police referred to as ‘he’ but identified as transgender and was called ‘she’ by Geyser, according to WISN.
The pair, who met just a few months ago at a church in Madison, Wisconsin, may have been heading to Nashville, Tennessee, according to a police report.
After taking public transportation to Chicago, the pair walked roughly 20 miles south to Posen, where police arrested them following reports of people loitering behind a truck stop.
In 2014, a 12-year-old Geyser and another girl, Anissa Weier, lured their classmate Payton Leutner into the woods and stabbed her 19 times.
Despite her injuries, Leutner crawled to a nearby bike path, was discovered by passersby, and survived.
After being found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, Geyser was sent to a mental hospital and later released to a Madison group home in March of this year.
She cut off her ankle monitor and escaped the home Saturday evening, only to be captured just over 24 hours later.
Geyser initially told police a false name when they found her, later admitting she hadn’t wanted to reveal her real identity.
She had “done something really bad,” Geyser said, telling officers to “Google” her, according to police.
Mecca’s next court appearance is set for January 15.
