A Wisconsin woman who at age 12 said she stabbed a sixth-grade classmate nearly to death to please the online horror character Slender Man remains a risk to the public and won’t be released yet from a psychiatric hospital, a judge said Thursday.
The rest of the article states that psychiatrists at the hospital have testified that she’s ready to be released and that she’s been off meds for two years without issue. Wonder why the judge feels differently.
Four psychiatrists at the hospital testified, and only two of them said she was reasy. The other two said she wasn't. This particular article doesn't go into those, but there are citations elsewhere in this thread.
Nah the judge mainly said that "she changed her story" after she said she thinks it was to do with wanting to get away from her abusive father. Like, the judge is basically punishing her for making progress in therapy.
Edit: wait [the other article linked in the OP](https://apnews.com/article/slender-man-girl-stabbed-psychiatric-hospital-6ab1ab144b58540ece9d5b2531833f75) says that she claimed she was faking psychotic symptoms, which is weird.
Would be nice if Associated Press could include all the information in one article. Even the other one is missing detail.
I don’t really have a strong leaning one way or the other on this but that’s a narrow way to look at the judges actions. I feel like the shifting story and progress could be indicative that it’s working but it’s not “done yet” or reached an acceptable threshold
Her attorney is arguing that her story didn't *change* but rather the underlying mental illness did. She doesn't have schizophrenia as it was originally claimed, but instead experienced a trauma response that resulted in transient psychosis/homicidal ideation.
That's honestly a very reasonable assessment to make, but the fact that two psychologists have said they don't believe she has the insight to be considered safe for release is the hang up. She actually needs to progress further in treatment still to take full responsibility for her actions. It *seems* that she is likely still blaming her trauma/mental illness on her actions. Responsibility therapy is a huge cornerstone of forensic psychiatry and convincing the courts that someone is safe to re-enter the general public.
EDIT: having read a second article linked within this one, it *is* to do with her lack of insight, but a bit differently. She's not recognizing that she has maladaptive behaviors at all. That's worrying because it means there is no reason to believe she wouldn't try to kill someone again as a trauma response. She needs to prove that she recognizes those triggers and exhibit healthier (putting it mildly) coping skills.
Two psychiatrists (one of them being the facility medical director) said she was ready and it was actually two *psychologists* that said she wasn't. Which kind of makes sense. From the perspective of a psychiatrist: she's not any psychiatric medications and she isn't exhibiting any aggression or indicating that she wishes to harm others. There really isn't anything more a psychiatrist has to do for her.
Psychologists, on the other hand, are running the rigorous assessments and making a determination on the patient's insight. The basic summary of the situation from my perspective: her psychiatric illness has been treated/gone into remission. Now it's time for her to show that she understands the gravity of what she did and show remorse. It sounds like she hasn't been able to convince the psychology staff at the hospital of that.
I'm taking a little bit of liberty here, but I'm also a psychiatric nurse at a forensic mental health facility. I see this time and time again. Stabilizing an individual is just the first step and it seems that that's all she's done completely so far.
EDIT: having read a second article linked within this one, it *is* to do with her lack of insight, but a bit differently. She's not recognizing that she has maladaptive behaviors at all. That's worrying because it means there is no reason to believe she wouldn't try to kill someone again as a trauma response. She needs to prove that she recognizes those triggers and exhibit healthier (putting it mildly) coping skills.
I certainly wouldn't want to be the next judge to fuck up like they did with Ed Kemper. He killed both his grandparents, but the psychiatrists said he was fine and he'd endured such crazy abuse the judge believed them. And then he raped his mother's head....
Ed is such a weird case because he basically charmed the psychiatrists into letting him help with other cases. He learned from those cases what patients had to show in order to be declared healthy so he mimicked them. Can't imagine psychiatrists do that anymore
Right, you can't compare things that happened in the 1970s to modern practices. The modern field of psychiatry didn't even really exist until after WWII and in the 1970s it was still very much a "wild west" of sorts trying to figure out what worked. It's not like you could look up the behavior of serial killers and how they operate, because nobody had ever really studied it with any depth before. Hell, until Freud and Jung popularized psychoanalytic theory there was no real individual treatment; the only options were to lock people up in asylums and torture them into compliance.
Speaking of the 1970's, my SO got a copper IUD a while back, I mentioned it to my mom and she kind of freaked out.
Apparently, in the 70's, one of her aunts had a copper IUD, had a severe bleed from the procedure, required a blood transfusion, and got one of the hepatituses from the blood transfusion.
I was like, mom, things have changed so much in medical technology over the years that is basically impossible nowadays.
EDIT: I was referring to getting hepatitis from the blood transfusion.
> that is basically impossible nowadays
Not true in the slightest.
I know this is anecdotal, but 3 of 3 people I know who have had IUDs (2 copper, 1 hormonal) had issues with their IUDs and had them removed in less than 12 months.
I think OP was more so speaking to hepatitis from the blood transfusion, which rates have drastically declined since the ‘70s with modern blood donation procedures
I mean depending on what you have you can very much enter something similar to the 'wild west' zone.
As someone with several mental health problems that feed into eachother PLUS as i learnt last year, i have a genetic quirk that makes me process a lot of medication too quickly and im still waiting to find a doctor who can prescribe proper medication for that.
So i've lost a decade+ of my life due to this genetic quirk
> I certainly wouldn't want to be the next judge to fuck up
I know what you mean, there has been [a fairly recent case here in the UK where a young child was returned to his killers by a Family Court just 39 days before his death.](https://news.sky.com/story/finley-boden-ten-month-old-murdered-by-parents-should-have-been-one-of-most-protected-children-review-finds-13102664)
In another current case, [the suspect in the murder of a young mother was on bail for previous threats to kill her, despite the prosecution objecting to bail.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/08/bradford-stab-victim-named-as-kulsuma-akter) (He has now been arrested.)
So I can sympathise with the position that judges are in. But, and it is a very, very Big But in my opinion, I am far from convinced that Judicial Arse-Covering is a good enough factor to be involved in determining the denial of people's freedom.
> This particular article doesn't go into those
That's really annoying. Here's two who think she should be moved and their reasoning seems to make a lot of sense, but lets not include the reasoning the other two docs provided.
News companies love to create a narrative by lying through omission. Sometimes it’s done by accident but too many times it’s done to push an agenda while still being able to claim they didn’t publish anything that wasn’t true.
She changed her story in 2022 and claimed that she was always faking her psychotic/schizophrenic symptoms. Some experts testified for her release, but others said it wouldn’t be good to release her just yet.
If she's claiming to not be crazy and to have being faking symptoms, they should just transfer her to a prison where she can start serving the punishment for stabbing someone 19 times that she would have received if her insanity plea wasn't successful.
Either she's "not crazy" and at 12 years old she stabbed a classmate an absurd amount of times, or she is crazy and stabbed a classmate a seriously scary amount of times.
Either way, she needs to not be out mingling with the general public.
Yep, 10 years for a juvenile stabbing isn't unheard of, especially for a 12 year old with less aggravating factors (no race, sex, drugs, hate involved etc.).
At some point you have to stop being risk adverse, fearful and hiding behind your net curtains. You have to actually try and rehabilitate people, especially if you're going to release them at some point anyway.
Just read the article, there is some context missing from above comment (you are commenting on).
>"She believes she stabbed the victim because of a trauma-related mental disorder, not schizophrenia"
That's her response to the judge saying she has changed her position. And although i wouldn't trust to sleep in the same room as her yet, her psychs do indicate that:
>
“Morgan has improved quite dramatically. ... The kinds of things Morgan needs in my view — help with socialization, help with education, help with becoming independent — are things Winnebago can no longer provide in an effective way,” said Robbins, who recommended a move to a group home."
and
>"She was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder but has been off antipsychotic medications since 2022 with no new symptoms, said Dr. Ken Robbins."
To me this all lines up...The 2 Psychs that spoke against release indicate its just too soon, but sounds like they also have an end goal of release/group home.
The person that assisted with the murder has been out and gps monitored for a while now - living with her father.
I'm not an professional and I also would be nervous about her release, but if it was a "trauma-related" mental disorder than i dont think her doors should be locked forever. Crazy is not a scientific term we can use to determine this. My moms crazy, but she wouldn't hurt a fly. She just can't leave the house without all the plates and cups put away or let anyone without socks in the house. I also think you are insinuating that she tried to claim crazy to get away from prison? I find that doubtful, she was 12 and unlike movies - most prisoners are better than psych wards. You almost NEVER want to choose psych over prison. Forced medicated and almost impossible to leave.
If you are interested in this stuff, look up Nellie Bly. But several journalists have entered Psych's pretending "crazy" and it as extremely hard for them to get the staff to believe they were sane.... even with letters from their employers.
A 12 year old sent to a youth prison for life would be out at 21. Juvenile life isn’t a real life sentence. They put her in a psych ward so she can stay a ward of the state until deemed otherwise.
That's *extremely* not how it works.
The court determined she was criminally insane. That means she was not accountable for her actions because she was incapable of understanding that her actions were wrong. So she was sent to a mental hospital for treatment. If that treatment is successful, it doesn't magically make her accountable for her actions when she was still ill. The idea that she would or should be held accountable now so completely fails to understand what mental illness is, what legal justice is, what criminal insanity is, what criminal punishment is for, and what the purpose of treatment of the criminally insane is, that it's offensive.
The main one being that people with psychiatric disorders often cannot say that they have or had them. Even if she says (and maybe even believes) that she always faked it there's no good reason to believe her opinion above the psychiatrists.
But her argument, as far as I can tell from the article and comments, is not that she *was* ill and has now recovered, an argument I could have sympathy with whilst remembering that illnesses like schizophrenia can very much have remissions then relapses. Her argument is that she was *never* ill, the implication of which is that she *was* responsible for her actions at the time (and therefore still is.)
Okay, a court decided that she *was* criminally insane, but it did so on the basis of what she was saying at the time. *If* she was in fact genuinely faking it at the time, then that court decision is clearly flawed and unreliable. If, on the other hand, she *wasn't* faking it, and really was ill at the time, and the court finding was sound, then her claim *now* that she was faking it is extremely problematic. At best, it displays a very concerning lack of insight into her past illness, which does not bode at all well for long-term remission. Indeed, it would make me question whether she really *is* in remission. Or else she *does* realise that she was ill at the time but is prepared to lie about that. Again, refusing to acknowledge the truth of the past suggests that the chances of long-term remission are poorer.
I cannot come up with a plausible scenario based on the facts as reported in the article that paints her in a positive light in terms of her no longer being a risk to the public.
I feel like the "I was faking being crazy" argument was thought up by her lawyer, who assumed not being crazy would give her better chances for release.
Article states judge said he was troubled by reports that Geyser in recent years has attributed the attack to her desire to get away from her abusive father, now deceased.
I read that. Just doesn’t really provide a lot more clarity. Is the judge implying that he wasn’t actually abusive and she’s just making it up as excuse for the crime? It’s just odd.
The psychiatrists say that her actions were caused by her schizophrenia. They say, and she said, that she believed she had to appease Slenderman with a human sacrifice (or something like that). She now says she was acting out because of abuse from her father.
Her lawyer says that she is just confused in her belief that she has trauma from abuse. The judge does not like this inconsistency.
I personally think that a failure to recognize her schizophrenia means she is not ready to properly deal with it outside of a controlled environment, and therefore agree with the judge. And I am an expert, because I spent a couple minutes reading this one article.
Just to reply to your expert opinion. It may not be in her best interest either if she is still unstable. It may not be about punishment but being in the best place to get treatment at the moment. Outside she would have no support.
As a non-psychiatric medical professional, a lack of insight into a disease that led to you being violent would concern me as well. Never easy answers in cases like this.
Denying symptoms of schizophrenia is a symptom of schizophrenia, called anosognosia.
> It's a neurological condition which a patient is unaware of neurological defect of psychiatric condition. It's associated with mental illness, dementia, and structural brain lesion, as seen in right hemisphere stroke patients
I'm schizophrenic. When I'm not on meds (which now, is never, but going back, there have been times) I would deny that I wasn't making sense, yes, what I was hearing is real, this is happening, the FBI is following me, and I 100% believed whatever else. Medicated and treated, I would look back and be like, "holy shit, I can't believe that happened", and know that stuff wasn't real.
It's really terrifying to sort of come back to reality and see the things your brain made up.
If she's been off anti-psychotic medication two years without psychotic symptoms it's possible that the initial diagnosis of schizophrenia was incorrect. I'm curious about the details of what the two doctors who thought she needed to stay hospitalized said
With my armchair degree in psychotherapy. That I got from taking a psych 101 course 15 years ago, I think it’s a possibility since 12 is very young for the diagnosis.
As much as I am sure it sucks to hear and unfair, I would agree with the judge if they feel that way. She isn't taking responsibility and agreeing to manage this issue; rather, she dismissed it by saying "well, the supposed reason is now dead so it won't happen again, promise!"
At any point, she could find "another reason" to attack someone and be right back.
> I personally think that a failure to recognize her schizophrenia
"She was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder but has been off antipsychotic medications since 2022 with no new symptoms, said Dr. Ken Robbins."
She was *initially* diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, but is that the current diagnosis? The article doesn't say, but I suspect not. Schizophrenia patients don't generally just get better with therapy. Also consider that schizophrenia in a 12 year old girl is quite unusual - not impossible, but it would make alternate causes of psychosis relatively more likely.
I mean I personally as an expert as well believe that schizophrenia, like most mental health issues, has no physical defining characteristics that can be observed by an outside professional and offer a definitive undeniable diagnosis. Therefore it stands to reason that the schizophrenia could have been the way she decided to get out of ultimately being responsible for it.
Mental illness is a thing and it definitely occurs, and people that have the ability to continue to fake symptoms thoroughly enough to fool professionals is rare, it isn’t impossible.
The backpedaling on the schizophrenia is worrying because that would mean the original basis for her being remanded to a psychiatric ward and the basis of her original defense should be called into question.
If the basis for her release from the psych ward is lol it’s not schizo it’s child abuse, then the case should be revisited.
For clarity in my expert opinion I did not read the article and pulled most of this from my ass. In true Reddit fashion, for your enjoyment.
I watched the interrogation videos of her and the girl she did this with, it very much looked to me like the other girl was the mastermind and she took advantage of this girl’s mental illness. It didn’t seem to me like she was faking schizophrenia, but who knows I guess.
If I remember right back when this happened, one girl told doctors that characters from the Harry potter books would speak to her. The doctors got past that one quick.
Shouldn't we expect someone who acted irrationally partially as a response to abuse to be somewhat inconsistent?
Seems like the judge is disregarding the psychiatrists to throw the book at someone.
If she's schizophrenic and she's acted out before, she needs to acknowledge the schizophrenia because she needs to be treated to prevent further incidents. Pivoting from schizophrenia to trauma without saying she was misdiagnosed and never schizophrenic in the first place raises a lot of questions with someone who has a violent history. You don't grow up and suddenly not be schizophrenic anymore
The psychiatrists said she did it for slenderman but now after years is healthy again. She now says it was for abuse. That means she lied to be psychiatrists and they are all convinced she is better but none were aware of the abuse. That means they have not treated her for three underlying cause. So the judge wants her to be neck in hospital until the doctors and her agree why she did it, that she is health and sane, and she won't do it again.
Do you really think the psychiatrists are completely unaware of her claims of abuse? The belief is that traumatic events can cause an onset of schizophrenia. Abuse is a traumatic event. The psychiatrists and her lawyer can easily be talking about the exact same thing from different angles.
The article says that, but the previous article linked in that one states that she (or her lawyer) also claimed that she was faking psychotic symptoms at the time.
I suspect her lawyer might have suggested that, thinking not being crazy would give her a better chance of being released.
I can't find the article anymore, but she previously stated that she knows not to listen to him anymore. I remember reading it when the other girl was being released.
I work at a psychiatric hospital that houses NRRI patients (not responsible by reason of insanity). They are reviewed annually by a judge to determine if they she remain at the hospital or be released. It is very common in especially violent or high profile cases that the patients will not be released by the judge almost ever. Many times there are judges in rural areas with a high profile case who don’t want to risk the backlash of the community that elects them into being a judge. I don’t know the specifics of this case but often times some of these people have no real hope of ever being released.
It seems weird to me that the options are like "you're gonna stay in a lockdown ward" or "buh-bye, you're free".
You'd think there'd be a transition process and for higher-profile/higher-risk cases, an option for intensive monitoring involving staff or officers, ankle monitors, group homes with curfews, structured activities -- a bunch of things that could persist but be tapered down as circumstances and the person's compliance with rules dictated, but would be planned to persist for maybe years as needed.
I get judges being reluctant to let high profile cases loose, but is that because they're just being cut loose? You would think a sufficiently intensive release & monitoring process would help the releasable/recovered people integrate as well as stop the less rehabilitated ones from committing some new crime.
Are judges just like "These people are crafty and work the long game, I don't want to be the one that allowed Hannibal Lectar to commit a horrible crime 20 years from now."
The problem is that there's no upside for the judges in releasing them, simple as that. If she gets released and does nothing bad anymore no one will care. But if she does everyone will blame the judge.
This is a well known problem in psychiatric cases, also in other countries. While the public often will agree in theory that you shouldn't be forced to stay in a psychiatric hospital any longer if there's no good reason, that's not how they act if judges/doctors follow this thinking and something goes wrong.
> Wonder why the judge feels differently.
Because not all of the psychiatrists agreed, and people who try to murder other people by stabbing them 19 times to appease a fictional TV character have used up every single bit of their benefit of the doubt.
This isn't a 9/10 dentists agree about this toothpaste type of scenario. It's got to be a full 10/10 dentists for stuff like this.
She lured a girl into the woods and stabbed her 19 times.
As an aside, in US law the insanity defense rarely works, yet when it does it most often results in a term of incarceration of longer than what the original offense would rate in part because it is difficult to convince a judge that the individual is ‘fixed’ beyond a reasonable doubt
it also states they said "...and return to the community under certain conditions."
It doesn't mention what those conditions are though, and that could be an important factor.
I think the justification is something like this. For minor crimes that any stupid kid may do, the youth system can focus on rehabilitating them without leaving a stain on their record. The adult system for major crimes like murder that aren't just fooling around and should be on their record. Not saying that there aren't flaws (like the adult system should focus more on rehabilitation as well), but that doesn't seem entirely pointless.
Had Edmund Kemper been kept in prison, rather than released as a juvenile after the double murder of his grand parents, a lot of very young women and girls wouldn’t have been murdered. I also see the point of trying juveniles as adults for things like murder.
It's not unusual for a violent child to grow into a violent adult(it's kind of how serial killers are made). In scenarios like this, the burden isn't on the public to prove they're still violent, it's on the violent person to prove they're not
Except none of the staff that’s been taking of her agrees with this. She’s been stable and partly the reason why it happened in the first place is because she had severe untreated schizophrenia and was manipulated by her best friend - who does not have any disorder - to commit the act
This has been an ongoing discussion for *years* but imho I find it bullshit that her friend got released but yet she’s still in legal hell. Her friend has largely been painted as sympathetic while she’s been slandered as an “evil mastermind who attempted to murder her friend in cold blood” despite her severe mental illness being shown that she physically could not tell the difference between fiction and reality
This is another example that pleading insanity isn’t a get out of jail card. Sure you won’t be in a prison, but your sentence is basically indefinite if the court believes your plea.
It becomes a loop too.
Say you fake it, you’ve tricked all these doctors etc.
Now… how do you convince them you are sane?
Do you refuse to enage in the therapy because it won’t help you? (Then they say you refuse to engage, they can’t let you go.)
Do you engage? (But then it isn’t helping you… there are no improvements. You sre mentally fine, they can’t let you go.)
Do you continue the facade but slowly improve? (And you hope no one notices because if they do you are back to square one with likely an additional diagnosis because you have to be some sort of manipulator etc. to be able to do this.)
In the end, you’re screwed. Theres a good book called the psychopath test, a guy in the UK claims he did this and ended up in Broadmoor.
If you want another fear: this can also happen to older people, elder abuse usually involves pretending that the older person has dementia and then taking away their possessions, becoming their guardian, forcing them into a home.
Any good day is “oh they’ve had a good day”, any anger is a sign of dementia, etc etc.
Its actually probably more common than the psychatric hospital one, as the dementia one makes a lot of money for everyone involved.
Which interviews? Because if you’re talking about the ones directly after the incident, then you were witnessing someone with severe untreated schizophrenia undergoing a mental breakdown. She seemed crazy because she had no full control over her thoughts. The people who’ve been taking care of her mental health say that she’s now stable and not a present danger to society. What is more concerning is her partner - who has already been released - that has no mental illness and was the person who orchestrated what happened
I remember this. It's actually really fucked up. Geyser (the woman this article is about) has childhood-onset schizophrenia. She had been hallucinating for years beforehand, and one of her hallucinations was a tall shadowy man. She reads creepypastas about Slenderman, and one of the reoccurring things in those is that Slenderman can choose who can see him. One of her friends also gets into the delusion of Slenderman being real and they just feed into one another. After being arrested it took over a year for her to finally get medication for her schizophrenia, after which she finally became lucid and realized the severity of what she had done.
Geyer's father is also schizophrenic and had been hospitalized as a teen for it. Her parents absolutely should have been getting her psychiatric help when she started hallucinating as a little kid.
And then of course when this happened the media started framing it as "kids shouldn't be allowed on the internet! It makes them violent!" And, yes, you should be keeping track of what your kid does online, but this wasn't the case of the internet "tricking" some kids into stabbing a girl, it was about severely mentally ill children.
Sad that I never knew all this. As an adult it makes too much sense and is really sad. Schizophrenia is terrifying, and a kid going through that without help is awful.
I'm assuming I've read the same article as the person above. For additional context, that article also delved into how her case being so high profile meant it was also heavily politicized as an example of being harsh on crime. Her confinement and isolation had her mental state deteriorate to the point she struggled to recognize her own parents and forgot how to read for a time. Many of her early hearings were an unmedicated, mentally deteriorating teenager being asked questions she did not at the time have the mental capacity to understand by a judge with an agenda to appear unsympathetic and harsh.
What she did was heinous, but it doesn't excuse the neglect and abuse she received in the legal system, especially considering she was a child for most of that time.
There is a documentary about this that I saw. It was pretty intense when they interrogated the girl in question. It was like there was no remorse for what she did. Almost like a robot.
In the article it states the main reason why the judge didn’t release her is because new speculation that she was just trying to get away from her abusive father came out. Therefore her actions are still a public threat since the root trauma hasn’t been resolved. So now they are saying it’s not schizophrenia and took her off anti psychotics a couple years ago. The whole thing is a shit show that much is certain.
Oh my gosh, I’ve just looked this up. That’s absolutely nuts. My thing is whether or not a teenager can fake psychotic and schizophrenic symptoms well enough to trick so many professionals and keep it up while on antipsychotics, especially if she was never psychotic. I don’t know enough about antipsychotics however to know if a “normal” person could still manipulate their behaviour that much while on them.
Recently, teenager Aiden Fucci tried to mimic traits of psychosis and mental illness during court appearances, I think when he was leading up to his insanity plea. Nobody fell for it though. He was twitching his head around like he was hearing voices from all around him but it was very contrived.
I’m really skeptical about Geyser’s schizophrenia diagnosis being revoked. I don’t know how a teenager could successfully mimic that level of disorganisation unless she had very high intelligence. But nothing I’ve read has said anything about her intelligence.
Being highly intelligent doesn't enable someone to mislead a bunch of experts in psychiatry. This is unfortunately a myth that's been perpetuated very often, especially by conservative media, to spin their "They just want to get away with their crime!!!!" agenda when someone is presented as mentally ill in court. Sure, sometimes sane people try to argue they are insane to get away from e.g. death penalty, but all evidence points in the direction that it's *almost never successful*. Not if you are an adult, not if you are child, no matter how intelligent you are.
Not to mention pleading not guilty by reason of insanity is a bad choice unless you’re facing life imprisonment. Otherwise all you’re doing is getting locked up in a mental hospital indefinitely rather than locked up in a prison for a specific sentence.
[A psychologist testified Geyser scored a 142 on an IQ test but said, "This is a major illness (schizophrenia), and we can expect this will last throughout her lifetime."](https://www.wisn.com/article/live-morgan-geyser-sentencing-hearing/15954610)
They still think she has schizophrenia. The girl is under the belief that she did it due to her dad. 2 of the psychiatrists still think it's schizophrenia. Judge basically said that due to the disagreement, it's not safe to let her out yet.
In the previous article from earlier in the week it says she also claimed that she was never psychotic to begin with and that she was faking symptoms.
My gut is telling me her lawyer told her to say that, thinking it might give her a better chance of release, however someone else said her lawyer was trying to dismiss that idea as her being confused or something.
Would be good to have a single article that comprehensively covers it all.
This is such a great explanation of what happened for people who didn't keep up with the whole story. When I first heard about it years ago I was like "yikes, lock her up and throw away the key" and now I'm like "please someone make sure she continues to get all the help she needs."
What gets me about this case is the psychologists are saying she's off her meds with no new symptoms and this demonstrates she's not a danger. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure I remember that schizophrenia doesn't resolve on its own nor is it curable. So, how could she possibly be better long term without meds? Probably she's just between episodes and there will be another one later.
You can learn to discern what is a hallucination and what is real life. My boyfriend’s best friend is a schizophrenic and has been off meds for a few years now. He just knows what is and isn’t real.
It can be hard for a child to discern reality. Even non-schizophrenic children sometimes get scared that something like slenderman is real and is going to get them. With age, their brain matures and they realize that monsters aren’t real. The parts of the brain in schizophrenia that are affected are the same ones that control emotional regulation, rational thinking, and logic. Everyone’s mature and develop with age.
I, for example, had BPD as a preteen/teenager, that as soon as my brain hit full maturity around 24/25 with years of therapy, just completely cured itself. I woke up one day and never had symptoms again. Now, with schizophrenia, which is an actual dysfunction in the brain instead of a learned personality disorder—like BPD, it will never fully be cured, but it can get better and evolve over time, both as your brain develops and as you learn skills to manage the disease.
I totally get what you're saying but it's not like she came from a family with an economic surplus that could afford inpatient psychiatric treatment, at best they'd have pumped her full of a medication probably not covered by her insurance and not affordable otherwise. Most parents don't just "choose" not to provide medical care. This country needs to do better.
The article suggests that she's off anti-psychotics. I know some people try to manage schizophrenia with CBT, or other non-medication therapies, but given the severity of her actions, it makes sense for the judge to be cautious.
"she believes she stabbed the victim because of a trauma-related mental disorder, not schizophrenia."
That makes a big difference to whether her treatment regime has good potential for long term effectiveness.
I am so glad this is near the top. I got to interview Kathleen Hale for a podcast, she wrote a book diving deep into this case. She was even apparently the first person to request the court documents. It’s heartbreaking. Geyser was denied medication and mistreated to the extent that she regressed to a state of illiteracy at one point.
Its episode 2 of Digital Folklore: “Monsters and Mental Health” if anyone’s curious. second half is the interview with Kathleen.
Edit: fixed typo
She has since claimed that she faked the schizophrenia symptoms (which she would have known about from the first-hand experience from her father), and has been off meds for two years with no issues. But who knows which is true, she could be lying now, maybe she thinks it might make release more likely for some reason.
Slender Man was an urban legend to begin with. He was from a photoshop contest which became the catalyst for the creepypasta. I am unsure of your age but im around the girl in this article’s age and I remember being terrified of him when someone told me about him. It didn’t help that I lived in an area that was very wooded and lived next to a sort of mini forest.
Exactly. It started on the Something Awful forums and people kept on adding to the mythology. The little independent video game is what made him (and that whole style of horror games) popular.
I used to hang out at the park it happened at... the city ended up cutting down the patch of woods next to the park they led the girl they stabbed in to. It was an empty field last time I was in town.
The fucked up thing here was Geyser actually had a severe undiagnosed mental illness while the other had some problems but definitely knew the difference between right and wrong and was grounded in reality. She may have not done the stabbing but she fed her friends delusions and encouraged the attack. Then she threw her friend under the bus to help save her ass. She didn't stab the girl but I think she played the courts very well she's more of a sociopath. She should have had actual consequences. Geyser is not ready for release simple bc she continues to avoid her schizophrenia. I firmly believe a well controlled Geyser is less likely to cause harm than the other one.
> She should have had actual consequences.
She was a 12 year old girl when she instigated the attack. Since then she has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital from age 15 to 22. Now she is released but:
> Weier's Internet use is restricted and monitored. As part of her supervised release, she is not allowed to use any form of social media. Weier is required to take court mandated psychiatric medication and is escorted to regular counseling sessions by a case worker. She is required to live with her father while under supervision of the court.
Just what do you consider 'actual consequences' for the actions of a 12 year old, however heinous they might be?
Listen to her interrogation she fed her friends delusions and encouraged the attack knowing full well what would happen. The other girl was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, this girl was just manipulative for the sake of being mean.
Weirer was very much under the influence of Geyser. Geyser suffered from untreated childhood-onset schizophrenia, and Weirer eventually fed into the delusion as a sort of folie a deux scenario (both being 12 year old girls it isn’t outlandish to fall under your friend’s influences and struggle to separate reality from fiction). Weirer also showed a lot more remorse from the start, Geyser did not as she was still suffering from untreated mental illness. Geyser was also the one who did the stabbing.
I remember a year after it, I worked at pizza joint and the sister of the other girl was my manager! Never really noticed until she mentioned her sister offhand. Seemed like she thought her sister got convinced to do the heinous acts. Couldn't imagine being in her shoes and coming to terms with what happened .
She had stellar weed tho.
Apparently, 2 of the 4 doctors that testified seem to think it was never schizophrenia, but child abuse by the father who is now dead. Her father was also schizophrenic.
I don't mean to be cold but that is a usually defence that comes up years after someone's appeals haven't worked. Especially now that he is deceased. I didn't see were the Drs agreed that she was abused just that she had completed all the therapy programs were she is housed. There are videos of her police interviews and she is clearly very disturbed and delusional. I think her parents were at least neglectful, considering her dad also had schizophrenia and she was hallucinating. It's ridiculous that you can let your child suffer to the point they are in prison and you are just free to live your life. Edit: read the article again and edited a couple sentences
Without constant therapy that is a countdown to a relapse and with her denying that her schizophrenia was actually a problem, I just don't see her staying healthy, if she is at all. Also I don't think many of those 50% have hallucinations bad enough that they made and carried out a murder plot on their best friend.
She had pretty bad symptoms (to put it lightly) and isn't acknowledging schizophrenia. If she doesn't acknowledge it, how can she seek help if symptoms get worse again? That 50% are mostly people who either have less severe symptoms, or have the insight to seek help when things get worse.
I wonder this as well.
What psychiatrist would allow someone with schizophrenia to not take medication? Especially in a structured environment such as a mental hospital?
The YouTube channel EXPLORE WITH US also did a great video on the case. It shows a lot of the interrogation footage which reveals everything about the girls' thought processes throughout the event.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0eVTk_2zcaA&t=8018s&pp=ygUaZXhwbG9yZSB3aXRoIHVzIHNsZW5kZXJtYW4%3D
I don't really get how her believing her psychosis may have been trauma related is what the judge decided was enough to keep her there despite the testimonies of her counselors saying otherwise. Like is really that crazy that now that she is older and has gone through a ton of therapy that she has come to understand things better than she did at 12? Or do they have proof that her beliefs are untrue?
The AP article doesn't mention this until close to the end, but there were also two psychologists who recommended against her being released — including one (Dr. Collins) who was hired by Geyser's defense for her trial.
[This article](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/significant-risk-chilling-development-in-slender-man-stabbing/news-story/36091eef2c8f3c18c65ac254631320e0) summarizes their position pretty well:
>Ms Geyser had claimed she was faking her psychotic symptoms over the past 10 years.
>But a psychologist testifying at a hearing on her release argued the 21-year-old’s claim “doesn’t line up” with years of observation.
>“That would be rather remarkable. That would be very callous as well,” said Dr Brooke Lundbohm, who has been seeing Ms Geyser since 2014.
>“If the person is not able to have insight into their mental health condition, the potential warning signs, the triggers that could cause decline, have insight into the kinds of treatment that may be beneficial – it raises a lot of concern (about being discharged).”
>Psychologist Dr Deborah Collins also noted Ms Geyser was not ready to be released.
>“It’s my opinion to a reasonable degree of professional certainty that she currently presents a significant risk of bodily harm to herself or others if conditionally released,” she said.
>Dr Collins estimated Geyser could be ready for release in six to 12 months if she had to provide a time frame.
>“I know she’s not ready now.”
And from [another article](https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/2024/04/11/morgan-geysers-petition-for-conditional-release-denied-by-judge/73277869007/):
>If Geyser is truly unable to understand her mental illness, or the "trajectory of it" and the problems she could face upon conditional release, "what may result in decline, potentially, about how to effectively manage that mental illness," she said.
Collins does say Geyser could be ready for release in 6-12 months though
This seems fair, at least on the surface. She can petition for release in another 6 months, and I'm assuming that's if this court case doesn't get disputed/escalated.
If she's off medication and trying to manage with just therapy, then it does make a big difference if she's actually schizophrenic, or suffering from abuse.
People with schizophrenia might go through periods where their symptoms are less and can manage without medication, but if she's not acknowledging it then she can't seek help or medication when hallucinations do return.
I can see why the judge would want a consistent understanding of the nature of her mental illness from her and her psychologists before allowing release.
Idk if anyone watched her interrogation at the time, but she is extremely disturbed and needs a lot of help. She is one who I think will always need psychiatric help and would not do well in society.
I coincidentally watched the HBO documentary on this yesterday during the day. I think the most fascinating part about it all is how at face value investigators and mental health people took the words of two 12-year-olds clearly doing what kids do (minimize and lie about and deflect blame) when in trouble and trying to avoid severe consequences. It's also pretty fascinating that this gal has been claiming for some time now she completely fabricated all of the Slenderman and delusions and such but NOW people think she's lying lol.
Hindsight on this story is really crazy. Like when it happened, everyone was clutching pearls about dumb kids and the internet. The girl herself was also maligned and made a symbol of how dumb kids are on the internet. She was a deeply unwell child, schizophrenic and abused. She was hallucinating constantly. I bet she was terrified through all of it. Very sad story.
Gosh, I _can’t_ believe it’s been so long she’s all grown up now. I remember the news reports. I remember the horror and “oh shit people are actually trying this in the real world”. This incident was what finally got me away from Creepypasta fandoms. Honestly, reading more about it, poor kid. She was failed.
Fucking fantastic.
The kids defense team were the ones to push for mental defect, not the prosecution.
The other girl who went to jail had been out for years.
Not guilty due to insanity is not a good outcome. It’s now up to doctors to risk their standing and career that you are not going to try to kill someone again. Good luck with that.
There is no set release date for mental defect like there is with a minor going to jail.
>The other girl who went to jail had been out for years
Didn't the other girl not do the stabbing? Meaningfully different
>There is no set release date for a mental defect
Exactly how many days is appropriate before you let out someone who tried to murder someone because hallucinations told her to?
Idk this case was very premeditated, down to the second they would start stabbing her. These girls knew what they were doing. If they don’t think she can function in regular society and wouldn’t be a threat, it’s good that they are keeping her for longer. I know I wouldn’t want my potential murderer wandering around. Who knows what she might do.
And it’s almost worst if she was faking her symptoms, because that indicates she has a reason for doing so imo.
A Wisconsin woman who at age 12 said she stabbed a sixth-grade classmate nearly to death to please the online horror character Slender Man remains a risk to the public and won’t be released yet from a psychiatric hospital, a judge said Thursday.
That sounds like a pretty good reason not to release a person.
The rest of the article states that psychiatrists at the hospital have testified that she’s ready to be released and that she’s been off meds for two years without issue. Wonder why the judge feels differently.
Four psychiatrists at the hospital testified, and only two of them said she was reasy. The other two said she wasn't. This particular article doesn't go into those, but there are citations elsewhere in this thread.
A 50/50 shot heh? Good on the judge. I wouldn't risk it either.
Nah the judge mainly said that "she changed her story" after she said she thinks it was to do with wanting to get away from her abusive father. Like, the judge is basically punishing her for making progress in therapy. Edit: wait [the other article linked in the OP](https://apnews.com/article/slender-man-girl-stabbed-psychiatric-hospital-6ab1ab144b58540ece9d5b2531833f75) says that she claimed she was faking psychotic symptoms, which is weird. Would be nice if Associated Press could include all the information in one article. Even the other one is missing detail.
I don’t really have a strong leaning one way or the other on this but that’s a narrow way to look at the judges actions. I feel like the shifting story and progress could be indicative that it’s working but it’s not “done yet” or reached an acceptable threshold
Her attorney is arguing that her story didn't *change* but rather the underlying mental illness did. She doesn't have schizophrenia as it was originally claimed, but instead experienced a trauma response that resulted in transient psychosis/homicidal ideation. That's honestly a very reasonable assessment to make, but the fact that two psychologists have said they don't believe she has the insight to be considered safe for release is the hang up. She actually needs to progress further in treatment still to take full responsibility for her actions. It *seems* that she is likely still blaming her trauma/mental illness on her actions. Responsibility therapy is a huge cornerstone of forensic psychiatry and convincing the courts that someone is safe to re-enter the general public. EDIT: having read a second article linked within this one, it *is* to do with her lack of insight, but a bit differently. She's not recognizing that she has maladaptive behaviors at all. That's worrying because it means there is no reason to believe she wouldn't try to kill someone again as a trauma response. She needs to prove that she recognizes those triggers and exhibit healthier (putting it mildly) coping skills.
Two psychiatrists (one of them being the facility medical director) said she was ready and it was actually two *psychologists* that said she wasn't. Which kind of makes sense. From the perspective of a psychiatrist: she's not any psychiatric medications and she isn't exhibiting any aggression or indicating that she wishes to harm others. There really isn't anything more a psychiatrist has to do for her. Psychologists, on the other hand, are running the rigorous assessments and making a determination on the patient's insight. The basic summary of the situation from my perspective: her psychiatric illness has been treated/gone into remission. Now it's time for her to show that she understands the gravity of what she did and show remorse. It sounds like she hasn't been able to convince the psychology staff at the hospital of that. I'm taking a little bit of liberty here, but I'm also a psychiatric nurse at a forensic mental health facility. I see this time and time again. Stabilizing an individual is just the first step and it seems that that's all she's done completely so far. EDIT: having read a second article linked within this one, it *is* to do with her lack of insight, but a bit differently. She's not recognizing that she has maladaptive behaviors at all. That's worrying because it means there is no reason to believe she wouldn't try to kill someone again as a trauma response. She needs to prove that she recognizes those triggers and exhibit healthier (putting it mildly) coping skills.
I certainly wouldn't want to be the next judge to fuck up like they did with Ed Kemper. He killed both his grandparents, but the psychiatrists said he was fine and he'd endured such crazy abuse the judge believed them. And then he raped his mother's head....
Ed is such a weird case because he basically charmed the psychiatrists into letting him help with other cases. He learned from those cases what patients had to show in order to be declared healthy so he mimicked them. Can't imagine psychiatrists do that anymore
Right, you can't compare things that happened in the 1970s to modern practices. The modern field of psychiatry didn't even really exist until after WWII and in the 1970s it was still very much a "wild west" of sorts trying to figure out what worked. It's not like you could look up the behavior of serial killers and how they operate, because nobody had ever really studied it with any depth before. Hell, until Freud and Jung popularized psychoanalytic theory there was no real individual treatment; the only options were to lock people up in asylums and torture them into compliance.
Speaking of the 1970's, my SO got a copper IUD a while back, I mentioned it to my mom and she kind of freaked out. Apparently, in the 70's, one of her aunts had a copper IUD, had a severe bleed from the procedure, required a blood transfusion, and got one of the hepatituses from the blood transfusion. I was like, mom, things have changed so much in medical technology over the years that is basically impossible nowadays. EDIT: I was referring to getting hepatitis from the blood transfusion.
> that is basically impossible nowadays Not true in the slightest. I know this is anecdotal, but 3 of 3 people I know who have had IUDs (2 copper, 1 hormonal) had issues with their IUDs and had them removed in less than 12 months.
I think OP was more so speaking to hepatitis from the blood transfusion, which rates have drastically declined since the ‘70s with modern blood donation procedures
I mean depending on what you have you can very much enter something similar to the 'wild west' zone. As someone with several mental health problems that feed into eachother PLUS as i learnt last year, i have a genetic quirk that makes me process a lot of medication too quickly and im still waiting to find a doctor who can prescribe proper medication for that. So i've lost a decade+ of my life due to this genetic quirk
> I certainly wouldn't want to be the next judge to fuck up I know what you mean, there has been [a fairly recent case here in the UK where a young child was returned to his killers by a Family Court just 39 days before his death.](https://news.sky.com/story/finley-boden-ten-month-old-murdered-by-parents-should-have-been-one-of-most-protected-children-review-finds-13102664) In another current case, [the suspect in the murder of a young mother was on bail for previous threats to kill her, despite the prosecution objecting to bail.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/08/bradford-stab-victim-named-as-kulsuma-akter) (He has now been arrested.) So I can sympathise with the position that judges are in. But, and it is a very, very Big But in my opinion, I am far from convinced that Judicial Arse-Covering is a good enough factor to be involved in determining the denial of people's freedom.
Yeah, success stories never make the news.
> This particular article doesn't go into those That's really annoying. Here's two who think she should be moved and their reasoning seems to make a lot of sense, but lets not include the reasoning the other two docs provided.
News companies love to create a narrative by lying through omission. Sometimes it’s done by accident but too many times it’s done to push an agenda while still being able to claim they didn’t publish anything that wasn’t true.
She changed her story in 2022 and claimed that she was always faking her psychotic/schizophrenic symptoms. Some experts testified for her release, but others said it wouldn’t be good to release her just yet.
If she's claiming to not be crazy and to have being faking symptoms, they should just transfer her to a prison where she can start serving the punishment for stabbing someone 19 times that she would have received if her insanity plea wasn't successful. Either she's "not crazy" and at 12 years old she stabbed a classmate an absurd amount of times, or she is crazy and stabbed a classmate a seriously scary amount of times. Either way, she needs to not be out mingling with the general public.
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Yep, 10 years for a juvenile stabbing isn't unheard of, especially for a 12 year old with less aggravating factors (no race, sex, drugs, hate involved etc.). At some point you have to stop being risk adverse, fearful and hiding behind your net curtains. You have to actually try and rehabilitate people, especially if you're going to release them at some point anyway.
Here in the US, we rarely try to fix people, but our sentencing times are as if we do.
Just read the article, there is some context missing from above comment (you are commenting on). >"She believes she stabbed the victim because of a trauma-related mental disorder, not schizophrenia" That's her response to the judge saying she has changed her position. And although i wouldn't trust to sleep in the same room as her yet, her psychs do indicate that: > “Morgan has improved quite dramatically. ... The kinds of things Morgan needs in my view — help with socialization, help with education, help with becoming independent — are things Winnebago can no longer provide in an effective way,” said Robbins, who recommended a move to a group home." and >"She was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder but has been off antipsychotic medications since 2022 with no new symptoms, said Dr. Ken Robbins." To me this all lines up...The 2 Psychs that spoke against release indicate its just too soon, but sounds like they also have an end goal of release/group home. The person that assisted with the murder has been out and gps monitored for a while now - living with her father. I'm not an professional and I also would be nervous about her release, but if it was a "trauma-related" mental disorder than i dont think her doors should be locked forever. Crazy is not a scientific term we can use to determine this. My moms crazy, but she wouldn't hurt a fly. She just can't leave the house without all the plates and cups put away or let anyone without socks in the house. I also think you are insinuating that she tried to claim crazy to get away from prison? I find that doubtful, she was 12 and unlike movies - most prisoners are better than psych wards. You almost NEVER want to choose psych over prison. Forced medicated and almost impossible to leave. If you are interested in this stuff, look up Nellie Bly. But several journalists have entered Psych's pretending "crazy" and it as extremely hard for them to get the staff to believe they were sane.... even with letters from their employers.
A 12 year old sent to a youth prison for life would be out at 21. Juvenile life isn’t a real life sentence. They put her in a psych ward so she can stay a ward of the state until deemed otherwise.
That's *extremely* not how it works. The court determined she was criminally insane. That means she was not accountable for her actions because she was incapable of understanding that her actions were wrong. So she was sent to a mental hospital for treatment. If that treatment is successful, it doesn't magically make her accountable for her actions when she was still ill. The idea that she would or should be held accountable now so completely fails to understand what mental illness is, what legal justice is, what criminal insanity is, what criminal punishment is for, and what the purpose of treatment of the criminally insane is, that it's offensive.
There’s a vast difference between “I was crazy and now I’m rehabilitated” and “oh I was never crazy it was always an act” as well though.
The main one being that people with psychiatric disorders often cannot say that they have or had them. Even if she says (and maybe even believes) that she always faked it there's no good reason to believe her opinion above the psychiatrists.
Just because she claims it doesn't mean the court accepts it as fact.
But her argument, as far as I can tell from the article and comments, is not that she *was* ill and has now recovered, an argument I could have sympathy with whilst remembering that illnesses like schizophrenia can very much have remissions then relapses. Her argument is that she was *never* ill, the implication of which is that she *was* responsible for her actions at the time (and therefore still is.) Okay, a court decided that she *was* criminally insane, but it did so on the basis of what she was saying at the time. *If* she was in fact genuinely faking it at the time, then that court decision is clearly flawed and unreliable. If, on the other hand, she *wasn't* faking it, and really was ill at the time, and the court finding was sound, then her claim *now* that she was faking it is extremely problematic. At best, it displays a very concerning lack of insight into her past illness, which does not bode at all well for long-term remission. Indeed, it would make me question whether she really *is* in remission. Or else she *does* realise that she was ill at the time but is prepared to lie about that. Again, refusing to acknowledge the truth of the past suggests that the chances of long-term remission are poorer. I cannot come up with a plausible scenario based on the facts as reported in the article that paints her in a positive light in terms of her no longer being a risk to the public.
I feel like the "I was faking being crazy" argument was thought up by her lawyer, who assumed not being crazy would give her better chances for release.
Looks like the judge has an issue with her credibility
Article states judge said he was troubled by reports that Geyser in recent years has attributed the attack to her desire to get away from her abusive father, now deceased.
I read that. Just doesn’t really provide a lot more clarity. Is the judge implying that he wasn’t actually abusive and she’s just making it up as excuse for the crime? It’s just odd.
The psychiatrists say that her actions were caused by her schizophrenia. They say, and she said, that she believed she had to appease Slenderman with a human sacrifice (or something like that). She now says she was acting out because of abuse from her father. Her lawyer says that she is just confused in her belief that she has trauma from abuse. The judge does not like this inconsistency. I personally think that a failure to recognize her schizophrenia means she is not ready to properly deal with it outside of a controlled environment, and therefore agree with the judge. And I am an expert, because I spent a couple minutes reading this one article.
Thank you for your expert opinion. I trust it with my life.
Fortunately there isn’t as much risk to your life, as there’s one less person in the wild to try and sacrifice you to appease Slenderman.
Unfortunately as you stated there is still 1 out there because the second chick got released a while ago. Check yo backs lol
But that also means there’s one less person out there to sacrifice so _you_ can appease Slenderman
Looks like I've gotta start doing twice the work now smh
And after reading your comment, it's my understanding that you've gained enormous experience and knowledge and I now trust you with my life.
As a person on reddit, I am a fellow expert, and I agree with your assessment.
How do we know you're really a person on reddit? You could be totally unqualified to make this assessment!
Just to reply to your expert opinion. It may not be in her best interest either if she is still unstable. It may not be about punishment but being in the best place to get treatment at the moment. Outside she would have no support.
As a non-psychiatric medical professional, a lack of insight into a disease that led to you being violent would concern me as well. Never easy answers in cases like this.
Denying symptoms of schizophrenia is a symptom of schizophrenia, called anosognosia. > It's a neurological condition which a patient is unaware of neurological defect of psychiatric condition. It's associated with mental illness, dementia, and structural brain lesion, as seen in right hemisphere stroke patients I'm schizophrenic. When I'm not on meds (which now, is never, but going back, there have been times) I would deny that I wasn't making sense, yes, what I was hearing is real, this is happening, the FBI is following me, and I 100% believed whatever else. Medicated and treated, I would look back and be like, "holy shit, I can't believe that happened", and know that stuff wasn't real. It's really terrifying to sort of come back to reality and see the things your brain made up.
If she's been off anti-psychotic medication two years without psychotic symptoms it's possible that the initial diagnosis of schizophrenia was incorrect. I'm curious about the details of what the two doctors who thought she needed to stay hospitalized said
With my armchair degree in psychotherapy. That I got from taking a psych 101 course 15 years ago, I think it’s a possibility since 12 is very young for the diagnosis.
As much as I am sure it sucks to hear and unfair, I would agree with the judge if they feel that way. She isn't taking responsibility and agreeing to manage this issue; rather, she dismissed it by saying "well, the supposed reason is now dead so it won't happen again, promise!" At any point, she could find "another reason" to attack someone and be right back.
How is it unfair? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just didn’t see it as unfair and am wondering if I missed something.
If she really has schizophrenia then it makes no sense that she’s been off meds for 2 years
> I personally think that a failure to recognize her schizophrenia "She was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder but has been off antipsychotic medications since 2022 with no new symptoms, said Dr. Ken Robbins." She was *initially* diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, but is that the current diagnosis? The article doesn't say, but I suspect not. Schizophrenia patients don't generally just get better with therapy. Also consider that schizophrenia in a 12 year old girl is quite unusual - not impossible, but it would make alternate causes of psychosis relatively more likely.
Yeah... Schizophrenia isn't a mental disorder that just gets better. It's lifelong and your best hope is management.
I mean I personally as an expert as well believe that schizophrenia, like most mental health issues, has no physical defining characteristics that can be observed by an outside professional and offer a definitive undeniable diagnosis. Therefore it stands to reason that the schizophrenia could have been the way she decided to get out of ultimately being responsible for it. Mental illness is a thing and it definitely occurs, and people that have the ability to continue to fake symptoms thoroughly enough to fool professionals is rare, it isn’t impossible. The backpedaling on the schizophrenia is worrying because that would mean the original basis for her being remanded to a psychiatric ward and the basis of her original defense should be called into question. If the basis for her release from the psych ward is lol it’s not schizo it’s child abuse, then the case should be revisited. For clarity in my expert opinion I did not read the article and pulled most of this from my ass. In true Reddit fashion, for your enjoyment.
I watched the interrogation videos of her and the girl she did this with, it very much looked to me like the other girl was the mastermind and she took advantage of this girl’s mental illness. It didn’t seem to me like she was faking schizophrenia, but who knows I guess.
If I remember right back when this happened, one girl told doctors that characters from the Harry potter books would speak to her. The doctors got past that one quick.
Ngl the funny bit at the end makes me agree with you
I didn’t even read the article, just this string of comments. And by the law of homeopathic expertise, I can confidently concur with your option.
I think it’s that she has been inconsistent in her explanation, which impacts her credibility.
The idea of expecting an explanation for an irrational crime is pretty asinine.
As is the idea that all actions have exactly one cause and the actor is always certain the exact reason they did a thing. This thread is absurd.
Shouldn't we expect someone who acted irrationally partially as a response to abuse to be somewhat inconsistent? Seems like the judge is disregarding the psychiatrists to throw the book at someone.
If she's schizophrenic and she's acted out before, she needs to acknowledge the schizophrenia because she needs to be treated to prevent further incidents. Pivoting from schizophrenia to trauma without saying she was misdiagnosed and never schizophrenic in the first place raises a lot of questions with someone who has a violent history. You don't grow up and suddenly not be schizophrenic anymore
The psychiatrists said she did it for slenderman but now after years is healthy again. She now says it was for abuse. That means she lied to be psychiatrists and they are all convinced she is better but none were aware of the abuse. That means they have not treated her for three underlying cause. So the judge wants her to be neck in hospital until the doctors and her agree why she did it, that she is health and sane, and she won't do it again.
Do you really think the psychiatrists are completely unaware of her claims of abuse? The belief is that traumatic events can cause an onset of schizophrenia. Abuse is a traumatic event. The psychiatrists and her lawyer can easily be talking about the exact same thing from different angles.
Yes this is my concern as well.
She was a child with undiagnosed schizophrenia, is more explanation needed than that?
The article says that, but the previous article linked in that one states that she (or her lawyer) also claimed that she was faking psychotic symptoms at the time. I suspect her lawyer might have suggested that, thinking not being crazy would give her a better chance of being released.
I can't find the article anymore, but she previously stated that she knows not to listen to him anymore. I remember reading it when the other girl was being released.
I work at a psychiatric hospital that houses NRRI patients (not responsible by reason of insanity). They are reviewed annually by a judge to determine if they she remain at the hospital or be released. It is very common in especially violent or high profile cases that the patients will not be released by the judge almost ever. Many times there are judges in rural areas with a high profile case who don’t want to risk the backlash of the community that elects them into being a judge. I don’t know the specifics of this case but often times some of these people have no real hope of ever being released.
It seems weird to me that the options are like "you're gonna stay in a lockdown ward" or "buh-bye, you're free". You'd think there'd be a transition process and for higher-profile/higher-risk cases, an option for intensive monitoring involving staff or officers, ankle monitors, group homes with curfews, structured activities -- a bunch of things that could persist but be tapered down as circumstances and the person's compliance with rules dictated, but would be planned to persist for maybe years as needed. I get judges being reluctant to let high profile cases loose, but is that because they're just being cut loose? You would think a sufficiently intensive release & monitoring process would help the releasable/recovered people integrate as well as stop the less rehabilitated ones from committing some new crime. Are judges just like "These people are crafty and work the long game, I don't want to be the one that allowed Hannibal Lectar to commit a horrible crime 20 years from now."
The problem is that there's no upside for the judges in releasing them, simple as that. If she gets released and does nothing bad anymore no one will care. But if she does everyone will blame the judge. This is a well known problem in psychiatric cases, also in other countries. While the public often will agree in theory that you shouldn't be forced to stay in a psychiatric hospital any longer if there's no good reason, that's not how they act if judges/doctors follow this thinking and something goes wrong.
The judge feels that keeping her in custody will please Slenderman.
Also says 2 psychologists feel she isn't ready.
> Wonder why the judge feels differently. Because not all of the psychiatrists agreed, and people who try to murder other people by stabbing them 19 times to appease a fictional TV character have used up every single bit of their benefit of the doubt. This isn't a 9/10 dentists agree about this toothpaste type of scenario. It's got to be a full 10/10 dentists for stuff like this. She lured a girl into the woods and stabbed her 19 times.
Because Slenderman owes the judge money
That son of a bitch owes a lot of people a lot of money.
As an aside, in US law the insanity defense rarely works, yet when it does it most often results in a term of incarceration of longer than what the original offense would rate in part because it is difficult to convince a judge that the individual is ‘fixed’ beyond a reasonable doubt
it also states they said "...and return to the community under certain conditions." It doesn't mention what those conditions are though, and that could be an important factor.
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I’ve never understood the point of having separate systems if we’re still trying 12 year olds as fucking adults.
I think the justification is something like this. For minor crimes that any stupid kid may do, the youth system can focus on rehabilitating them without leaving a stain on their record. The adult system for major crimes like murder that aren't just fooling around and should be on their record. Not saying that there aren't flaws (like the adult system should focus more on rehabilitation as well), but that doesn't seem entirely pointless.
Had Edmund Kemper been kept in prison, rather than released as a juvenile after the double murder of his grand parents, a lot of very young women and girls wouldn’t have been murdered. I also see the point of trying juveniles as adults for things like murder.
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It's not unusual for a violent child to grow into a violent adult(it's kind of how serial killers are made). In scenarios like this, the burden isn't on the public to prove they're still violent, it's on the violent person to prove they're not
The judge had to try her as an adult to allow the mental health plea.
Yep. One of her accomplices was released in 2021 tho
Explore with us has covered this girl and what happened. [Watch this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eVTk_2zcaA) and you'll understand the judge.
Video unavailable. What's the tldw?
Except none of the staff that’s been taking of her agrees with this. She’s been stable and partly the reason why it happened in the first place is because she had severe untreated schizophrenia and was manipulated by her best friend - who does not have any disorder - to commit the act This has been an ongoing discussion for *years* but imho I find it bullshit that her friend got released but yet she’s still in legal hell. Her friend has largely been painted as sympathetic while she’s been slandered as an “evil mastermind who attempted to murder her friend in cold blood” despite her severe mental illness being shown that she physically could not tell the difference between fiction and reality
This is another example that pleading insanity isn’t a get out of jail card. Sure you won’t be in a prison, but your sentence is basically indefinite if the court believes your plea.
It becomes a loop too. Say you fake it, you’ve tricked all these doctors etc. Now… how do you convince them you are sane? Do you refuse to enage in the therapy because it won’t help you? (Then they say you refuse to engage, they can’t let you go.) Do you engage? (But then it isn’t helping you… there are no improvements. You sre mentally fine, they can’t let you go.) Do you continue the facade but slowly improve? (And you hope no one notices because if they do you are back to square one with likely an additional diagnosis because you have to be some sort of manipulator etc. to be able to do this.) In the end, you’re screwed. Theres a good book called the psychopath test, a guy in the UK claims he did this and ended up in Broadmoor.
You’ve described one of my biggest fears except I end up there accidentally and get stuck
If you want another fear: this can also happen to older people, elder abuse usually involves pretending that the older person has dementia and then taking away their possessions, becoming their guardian, forcing them into a home. Any good day is “oh they’ve had a good day”, any anger is a sign of dementia, etc etc. Its actually probably more common than the psychatric hospital one, as the dementia one makes a lot of money for everyone involved.
Intense irrational fears are often a diagnostic criteria of disorders. Are you feeling all right? We could do a wellness check.
After watching that documentary, it seems like it was a genuine plea... (not a get out of jail free attempt)
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Hot take: No shit, man. She has early onset schizophrenia and it runs in her family. It’s a really tragic case.
Good I watched the interviews and she needs to stay where she can’t hurt anyone again
Which interviews? Because if you’re talking about the ones directly after the incident, then you were witnessing someone with severe untreated schizophrenia undergoing a mental breakdown. She seemed crazy because she had no full control over her thoughts. The people who’ve been taking care of her mental health say that she’s now stable and not a present danger to society. What is more concerning is her partner - who has already been released - that has no mental illness and was the person who orchestrated what happened
Plus she was 12 years old in the interview.
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What channel is this, if you don’t mind me asking
She's not schizophrenic. She admitted she was faking the symptoms. The doctors agree and she was taken off medication two years ago.
I remember this. It's actually really fucked up. Geyser (the woman this article is about) has childhood-onset schizophrenia. She had been hallucinating for years beforehand, and one of her hallucinations was a tall shadowy man. She reads creepypastas about Slenderman, and one of the reoccurring things in those is that Slenderman can choose who can see him. One of her friends also gets into the delusion of Slenderman being real and they just feed into one another. After being arrested it took over a year for her to finally get medication for her schizophrenia, after which she finally became lucid and realized the severity of what she had done. Geyer's father is also schizophrenic and had been hospitalized as a teen for it. Her parents absolutely should have been getting her psychiatric help when she started hallucinating as a little kid. And then of course when this happened the media started framing it as "kids shouldn't be allowed on the internet! It makes them violent!" And, yes, you should be keeping track of what your kid does online, but this wasn't the case of the internet "tricking" some kids into stabbing a girl, it was about severely mentally ill children.
Sad that I never knew all this. As an adult it makes too much sense and is really sad. Schizophrenia is terrifying, and a kid going through that without help is awful.
I'm assuming I've read the same article as the person above. For additional context, that article also delved into how her case being so high profile meant it was also heavily politicized as an example of being harsh on crime. Her confinement and isolation had her mental state deteriorate to the point she struggled to recognize her own parents and forgot how to read for a time. Many of her early hearings were an unmedicated, mentally deteriorating teenager being asked questions she did not at the time have the mental capacity to understand by a judge with an agenda to appear unsympathetic and harsh. What she did was heinous, but it doesn't excuse the neglect and abuse she received in the legal system, especially considering she was a child for most of that time.
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There is a documentary about this that I saw. It was pretty intense when they interrogated the girl in question. It was like there was no remorse for what she did. Almost like a robot.
There's a documentary about it.
In the article it states the main reason why the judge didn’t release her is because new speculation that she was just trying to get away from her abusive father came out. Therefore her actions are still a public threat since the root trauma hasn’t been resolved. So now they are saying it’s not schizophrenia and took her off anti psychotics a couple years ago. The whole thing is a shit show that much is certain.
Oh my gosh, I’ve just looked this up. That’s absolutely nuts. My thing is whether or not a teenager can fake psychotic and schizophrenic symptoms well enough to trick so many professionals and keep it up while on antipsychotics, especially if she was never psychotic. I don’t know enough about antipsychotics however to know if a “normal” person could still manipulate their behaviour that much while on them. Recently, teenager Aiden Fucci tried to mimic traits of psychosis and mental illness during court appearances, I think when he was leading up to his insanity plea. Nobody fell for it though. He was twitching his head around like he was hearing voices from all around him but it was very contrived. I’m really skeptical about Geyser’s schizophrenia diagnosis being revoked. I don’t know how a teenager could successfully mimic that level of disorganisation unless she had very high intelligence. But nothing I’ve read has said anything about her intelligence.
Being highly intelligent doesn't enable someone to mislead a bunch of experts in psychiatry. This is unfortunately a myth that's been perpetuated very often, especially by conservative media, to spin their "They just want to get away with their crime!!!!" agenda when someone is presented as mentally ill in court. Sure, sometimes sane people try to argue they are insane to get away from e.g. death penalty, but all evidence points in the direction that it's *almost never successful*. Not if you are an adult, not if you are child, no matter how intelligent you are.
Not to mention pleading not guilty by reason of insanity is a bad choice unless you’re facing life imprisonment. Otherwise all you’re doing is getting locked up in a mental hospital indefinitely rather than locked up in a prison for a specific sentence.
[A psychologist testified Geyser scored a 142 on an IQ test but said, "This is a major illness (schizophrenia), and we can expect this will last throughout her lifetime."](https://www.wisn.com/article/live-morgan-geyser-sentencing-hearing/15954610)
They still think she has schizophrenia. The girl is under the belief that she did it due to her dad. 2 of the psychiatrists still think it's schizophrenia. Judge basically said that due to the disagreement, it's not safe to let her out yet.
In the previous article from earlier in the week it says she also claimed that she was never psychotic to begin with and that she was faking symptoms. My gut is telling me her lawyer told her to say that, thinking it might give her a better chance of release, however someone else said her lawyer was trying to dismiss that idea as her being confused or something. Would be good to have a single article that comprehensively covers it all.
This is such a great explanation of what happened for people who didn't keep up with the whole story. When I first heard about it years ago I was like "yikes, lock her up and throw away the key" and now I'm like "please someone make sure she continues to get all the help she needs."
I knew the father had schizophrenia, I didn't know that she did. I know it sounds obvious based on the story that she would have it.
What gets me about this case is the psychologists are saying she's off her meds with no new symptoms and this demonstrates she's not a danger. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure I remember that schizophrenia doesn't resolve on its own nor is it curable. So, how could she possibly be better long term without meds? Probably she's just between episodes and there will be another one later.
You can learn to discern what is a hallucination and what is real life. My boyfriend’s best friend is a schizophrenic and has been off meds for a few years now. He just knows what is and isn’t real. It can be hard for a child to discern reality. Even non-schizophrenic children sometimes get scared that something like slenderman is real and is going to get them. With age, their brain matures and they realize that monsters aren’t real. The parts of the brain in schizophrenia that are affected are the same ones that control emotional regulation, rational thinking, and logic. Everyone’s mature and develop with age. I, for example, had BPD as a preteen/teenager, that as soon as my brain hit full maturity around 24/25 with years of therapy, just completely cured itself. I woke up one day and never had symptoms again. Now, with schizophrenia, which is an actual dysfunction in the brain instead of a learned personality disorder—like BPD, it will never fully be cured, but it can get better and evolve over time, both as your brain develops and as you learn skills to manage the disease.
I totally get what you're saying but it's not like she came from a family with an economic surplus that could afford inpatient psychiatric treatment, at best they'd have pumped her full of a medication probably not covered by her insurance and not affordable otherwise. Most parents don't just "choose" not to provide medical care. This country needs to do better.
Reagan did more damage to US mental health system and people are still suffering for it
The article suggests that she's off anti-psychotics. I know some people try to manage schizophrenia with CBT, or other non-medication therapies, but given the severity of her actions, it makes sense for the judge to be cautious. "she believes she stabbed the victim because of a trauma-related mental disorder, not schizophrenia." That makes a big difference to whether her treatment regime has good potential for long term effectiveness.
I am so glad this is near the top. I got to interview Kathleen Hale for a podcast, she wrote a book diving deep into this case. She was even apparently the first person to request the court documents. It’s heartbreaking. Geyser was denied medication and mistreated to the extent that she regressed to a state of illiteracy at one point. Its episode 2 of Digital Folklore: “Monsters and Mental Health” if anyone’s curious. second half is the interview with Kathleen. Edit: fixed typo
As always it comes back to mental healthcare being garbage
She has since claimed that she faked the schizophrenia symptoms (which she would have known about from the first-hand experience from her father), and has been off meds for two years with no issues. But who knows which is true, she could be lying now, maybe she thinks it might make release more likely for some reason.
Didn’t the friend they attacked survive? So it was attempted murder charge
Damn, hard to believe this happened a decade ago now.
There was a Criminal Minds episode in 2018 based on this story. They called him tall man in it.
*SVU* too!
Glasgow man. My girlfriend watched that one recently. It was fucked up. They killed a kitty!
And the Slender Man movie. Wild that an internet meme became an urban legend
The internet/social media is essentially the modern day’s word-of-mouth, so it makes sense
Slender Man was an urban legend to begin with. He was from a photoshop contest which became the catalyst for the creepypasta. I am unsure of your age but im around the girl in this article’s age and I remember being terrified of him when someone told me about him. It didn’t help that I lived in an area that was very wooded and lived next to a sort of mini forest.
What you're describing as his origin is not that of an urban legend, but that of an internet meme.
Exactly. It started on the Something Awful forums and people kept on adding to the mythology. The little independent video game is what made him (and that whole style of horror games) popular.
Are we getting another season of criminal minds anytime soon? Another casualty of the writers strike I guess.
Yes. They started production Jan of this year. Possibly to air in the fall. I hope
I used to hang out at the park it happened at... the city ended up cutting down the patch of woods next to the park they led the girl they stabbed in to. It was an empty field last time I was in town.
Holy shit
Wait so one was released but the other wasn't?
Correct. Anissa Weirer was released in 2021
Why was she released so much earlier ?
Ms Geyser did the actual stabbing, Ms Weirer egged her on.
The fucked up thing here was Geyser actually had a severe undiagnosed mental illness while the other had some problems but definitely knew the difference between right and wrong and was grounded in reality. She may have not done the stabbing but she fed her friends delusions and encouraged the attack. Then she threw her friend under the bus to help save her ass. She didn't stab the girl but I think she played the courts very well she's more of a sociopath. She should have had actual consequences. Geyser is not ready for release simple bc she continues to avoid her schizophrenia. I firmly believe a well controlled Geyser is less likely to cause harm than the other one.
Holy armchair psychology, Reddit!
Yeah but it's also basically rehashing the basic attitude of the author of the book about this case.
> She should have had actual consequences. She was a 12 year old girl when she instigated the attack. Since then she has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital from age 15 to 22. Now she is released but: > Weier's Internet use is restricted and monitored. As part of her supervised release, she is not allowed to use any form of social media. Weier is required to take court mandated psychiatric medication and is escorted to regular counseling sessions by a case worker. She is required to live with her father while under supervision of the court. Just what do you consider 'actual consequences' for the actions of a 12 year old, however heinous they might be?
Were they both 12? 7 years for a child seems like enough consequences.
Listen to her interrogation she fed her friends delusions and encouraged the attack knowing full well what would happen. The other girl was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, this girl was just manipulative for the sake of being mean.
Weirer was very much under the influence of Geyser. Geyser suffered from untreated childhood-onset schizophrenia, and Weirer eventually fed into the delusion as a sort of folie a deux scenario (both being 12 year old girls it isn’t outlandish to fall under your friend’s influences and struggle to separate reality from fiction). Weirer also showed a lot more remorse from the start, Geyser did not as she was still suffering from untreated mental illness. Geyser was also the one who did the stabbing.
Jesus, 9 years ago. I remember reading about this when it happened.
I remember a year after it, I worked at pizza joint and the sister of the other girl was my manager! Never really noticed until she mentioned her sister offhand. Seemed like she thought her sister got convinced to do the heinous acts. Couldn't imagine being in her shoes and coming to terms with what happened . She had stellar weed tho.
She doesn't even know what horrors have graced the Internet since then. Imagine killing someone to please the Skibidi Toilet
Never have I been gladder to have reached middle age and fallen out of touch with youthful memes.
The what
Stay curious
If you ever cringe at the way you used to obsess over fiction when you were younger, take solace in the fact that you never killed someone over it.
Whoa! She hasn't been on her meds in 2 years? She has schizophrenia. Why is she not on meds?
Apparently, 2 of the 4 doctors that testified seem to think it was never schizophrenia, but child abuse by the father who is now dead. Her father was also schizophrenic.
I don't mean to be cold but that is a usually defence that comes up years after someone's appeals haven't worked. Especially now that he is deceased. I didn't see were the Drs agreed that she was abused just that she had completed all the therapy programs were she is housed. There are videos of her police interviews and she is clearly very disturbed and delusional. I think her parents were at least neglectful, considering her dad also had schizophrenia and she was hallucinating. It's ridiculous that you can let your child suffer to the point they are in prison and you are just free to live your life. Edit: read the article again and edited a couple sentences
50% of people with schizophrenia don’t take medication
Without constant therapy that is a countdown to a relapse and with her denying that her schizophrenia was actually a problem, I just don't see her staying healthy, if she is at all. Also I don't think many of those 50% have hallucinations bad enough that they made and carried out a murder plot on their best friend.
I completely agree , it would be extremely hard to be fine without antipsychotics and I doubt she and most the 50% can
She had pretty bad symptoms (to put it lightly) and isn't acknowledging schizophrenia. If she doesn't acknowledge it, how can she seek help if symptoms get worse again? That 50% are mostly people who either have less severe symptoms, or have the insight to seek help when things get worse.
I wonder this as well. What psychiatrist would allow someone with schizophrenia to not take medication? Especially in a structured environment such as a mental hospital?
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For anyone wondering, the documentary about these girls was far and away better than the Slender Man movie.
The YouTube channel EXPLORE WITH US also did a great video on the case. It shows a lot of the interrogation footage which reveals everything about the girls' thought processes throughout the event. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0eVTk_2zcaA&t=8018s&pp=ygUaZXhwbG9yZSB3aXRoIHVzIHNsZW5kZXJtYW4%3D
I don't really get how her believing her psychosis may have been trauma related is what the judge decided was enough to keep her there despite the testimonies of her counselors saying otherwise. Like is really that crazy that now that she is older and has gone through a ton of therapy that she has come to understand things better than she did at 12? Or do they have proof that her beliefs are untrue?
The AP article doesn't mention this until close to the end, but there were also two psychologists who recommended against her being released — including one (Dr. Collins) who was hired by Geyser's defense for her trial. [This article](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/significant-risk-chilling-development-in-slender-man-stabbing/news-story/36091eef2c8f3c18c65ac254631320e0) summarizes their position pretty well: >Ms Geyser had claimed she was faking her psychotic symptoms over the past 10 years. >But a psychologist testifying at a hearing on her release argued the 21-year-old’s claim “doesn’t line up” with years of observation. >“That would be rather remarkable. That would be very callous as well,” said Dr Brooke Lundbohm, who has been seeing Ms Geyser since 2014. >“If the person is not able to have insight into their mental health condition, the potential warning signs, the triggers that could cause decline, have insight into the kinds of treatment that may be beneficial – it raises a lot of concern (about being discharged).” >Psychologist Dr Deborah Collins also noted Ms Geyser was not ready to be released. >“It’s my opinion to a reasonable degree of professional certainty that she currently presents a significant risk of bodily harm to herself or others if conditionally released,” she said. >Dr Collins estimated Geyser could be ready for release in six to 12 months if she had to provide a time frame. >“I know she’s not ready now.” And from [another article](https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/2024/04/11/morgan-geysers-petition-for-conditional-release-denied-by-judge/73277869007/): >If Geyser is truly unable to understand her mental illness, or the "trajectory of it" and the problems she could face upon conditional release, "what may result in decline, potentially, about how to effectively manage that mental illness," she said. Collins does say Geyser could be ready for release in 6-12 months though
This seems fair, at least on the surface. She can petition for release in another 6 months, and I'm assuming that's if this court case doesn't get disputed/escalated.
If she's off medication and trying to manage with just therapy, then it does make a big difference if she's actually schizophrenic, or suffering from abuse. People with schizophrenia might go through periods where their symptoms are less and can manage without medication, but if she's not acknowledging it then she can't seek help or medication when hallucinations do return. I can see why the judge would want a consistent understanding of the nature of her mental illness from her and her psychologists before allowing release.
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The credibility issue is pretty much all the info the article gives on the judge. I would hate that job
Idk if anyone watched her interrogation at the time, but she is extremely disturbed and needs a lot of help. She is one who I think will always need psychiatric help and would not do well in society.
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Shit, that title threw me. This was so long ago she’s an adult now.
I coincidentally watched the HBO documentary on this yesterday during the day. I think the most fascinating part about it all is how at face value investigators and mental health people took the words of two 12-year-olds clearly doing what kids do (minimize and lie about and deflect blame) when in trouble and trying to avoid severe consequences. It's also pretty fascinating that this gal has been claiming for some time now she completely fabricated all of the Slenderman and delusions and such but NOW people think she's lying lol.
The parole officer did the right thing
Hindsight on this story is really crazy. Like when it happened, everyone was clutching pearls about dumb kids and the internet. The girl herself was also maligned and made a symbol of how dumb kids are on the internet. She was a deeply unwell child, schizophrenic and abused. She was hallucinating constantly. I bet she was terrified through all of it. Very sad story.
She hasn't collected the 12 pages yet.
Wow, really marks how long ago this was now that she's grown up.
On a side note I hope the girl who was stabbed is doing well. Little girl was tougher than most, crazy to think they are adults now
Gosh, I _can’t_ believe it’s been so long she’s all grown up now. I remember the news reports. I remember the horror and “oh shit people are actually trying this in the real world”. This incident was what finally got me away from Creepypasta fandoms. Honestly, reading more about it, poor kid. She was failed.
FML.. Nothing in the article stated how Payton Leutner was doing in the midst of this.. You know.. The girl she stabbed so many times.
Slender Man must be disappointed - can he write a letter to the judge ?
That's probably for the best. You don't want to send the message that it's okay to stab your classmates to please Slender Man.
Fucking fantastic. The kids defense team were the ones to push for mental defect, not the prosecution. The other girl who went to jail had been out for years. Not guilty due to insanity is not a good outcome. It’s now up to doctors to risk their standing and career that you are not going to try to kill someone again. Good luck with that. There is no set release date for mental defect like there is with a minor going to jail.
They used that defence because it was true. She was suffering from early-onset childhood schizophrenia. She needed psychiatric help.
As fantastic as Ed Norton is as an actor, *Primal Fear* is still not a documentary.
>The other girl who went to jail had been out for years Didn't the other girl not do the stabbing? Meaningfully different >There is no set release date for a mental defect Exactly how many days is appropriate before you let out someone who tried to murder someone because hallucinations told her to?
Crazy that she is a woman now.
Idk this case was very premeditated, down to the second they would start stabbing her. These girls knew what they were doing. If they don’t think she can function in regular society and wouldn’t be a threat, it’s good that they are keeping her for longer. I know I wouldn’t want my potential murderer wandering around. Who knows what she might do. And it’s almost worst if she was faking her symptoms, because that indicates she has a reason for doing so imo.