Morgan Geyser, the Wisconsin woman who nearly stabbed her friend to death to please the online fictional character Slender Man when she was 12, was denied release from a psychiatric hospital Thursday, April 11, The New York Times reports.
A Wisconsin judge ruled that Geyser, now 21, will have to remain at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute despite some doctors saying they believed she was ready to be released under certain conditions. But other medical experts argued against her release, while the Waukesha County assistant district attorney and members of the victim’s family remained opposed to it as well.
Ultimately, the judge ruled that there was still too much risk that Geyser might harm herself or others. Geyser’s lawyer said he would file another petition for her conditional release in six months.
In 2018, Geyser was sentenced to 40 years in a mental institution after pleading guilty to attempted murder the previous year. Geyser and another friend, Anissa Weier, attempted to kill their classmate Payton Leutner in 2014 when all three girls were 12 years old. After stabbing Leutner 19 times, Geyser and Weier left Leutner wounded in the woods, where a cyclist eventually found her.
When authorities questioned Geyser and Weir, the two said they committed the crime to please Slender Man and become his “proxies” because they believed the character would hurt their families. (Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide and was sentenced to 25 years in the same institution. She was granted conditional release in 2021 and is serving the remainder of her sentence at her father’s house.)
In January, Geyser filed her petition for early release. During the two-day hearing, some of the experts spoke about Geyser’s traumatic childhood, including her claim that her father (who died in 2023) had sexually assaulted her. One doctor who thought Geyser was ready for release to a group home said she had “improved quite dramatically” and that the things she needed — “help with socialization, help with education, help with becoming independent” — were things the mental institution “can no longer provide in an effective way” (via The Associated Press).
The institution’s director also said she believed Geyser was “safe to return to the community” and that she’d “actively participated in therapy, medication management, and all the treatments that are available.”
But one psychologist who argued against her release highlighted continuing concerns, like Geyser’s alleged attempt to hang herself in Oct. 2021 and her decision to stop taking antipsychotic medications in 2022. The judge also responded to questions about Geyser’s credibility and her claims to therapists that she faked mental illness and even carried out the attack against Leutner as a way to escape her abusive father.
“This is a brutal attack on a person,” the judge said. “This is hands on, if you will. This is bloody, this is gory. That kind of dangerous conduct is what the risk is.” He added: “She’s changed her position… Until that credibility is resolved, the risk is high.”
Hoyt Richards as a young man.
