A Wisconsin woman accused of stabbing her classmate to please horror character Slender Man more than a decade ago asked a judge again Friday to release her from a psychiatric hospital.
Morgan Geyser, who is now 22 years old, filed a petition with Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren seeking her release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. The petition marks the third time in the last two years she has asked Bohren to let her out of the facility.
She withdrew her first petition two months after filing it in 2022. Bohren denied her second request this past April, saying she remains a risk to the public.
So she was 12 when she did it, but is still a danger to others 10 years later if I’m reading correctly.
Was the psychiatric hospital meant to rehabilitate her?
If possible, otherwise keep her away from pointy items. Working in psychiatry years ago, I’ve met people for whom their psychiatric diagnosis was chronic, and whom you could dope all you wanted, but their psychosis never retreated. All you could do was keep them from hurting themselves or others.
Sometimes we need a way to shield individuals from the general public, without it actually being a punishment. Lady in the story sounds like an example.
Being put in a criminal psychiatric facility for life doesn’t sound like “without it actually being a punishment” to me.
Especially not in the U.S.
It depends, I worked in a similar place and the people there lived in relative comfort. Obviously it’s going to be a sad situation regardless, as even in the best of settings they no longer have freedom. but to some of the people in there they preferred it. Many of them had their own collections of books and even some video games and the like in their rooms and they could do things like working at the canteen to occupy their time otherwise. For someone with very severe mental issues, living somewhere that keeps you away from the world and makes sure you’re fed and relatively safe can be preferable.
I mean sure, but at 12 years old you cannot possibly be a lost cause I would think, there is still so much development going on.
That is like saying a 12 year old should be able to be healed from being quadriplegic because they are still growing. Some medical conditions are for live (at our current medical knowledge) and it doesn’t matter if they are “physical” or “mental”.
There’s a huge difference between neurological growth and limb growth. Now if you could point to the physical damage on her brain and display evidence it can’t heal I might agree with you. But as it stands all we know is an atrocious act and our own cultural biases that make it easy and convenient to say that a 12 year old committing such an act is irreparably broken.
And even if the causative disorder is irreparable, many psychological disorders allow for workarounds and treatments that can prevent the catastrophic scenarios.
It’s not physical damage to her brain. She has schizophrenia and developed symptoms of it at an abnormally young age. She didn’t have a clear grasp on what was and wasn’t real and that ultimately led her to stab her friend nineteen times. It’s clearly a condition that has presented itself as very dangerous for her, and it needs to be under control before she can be released.
That’s a false equivalence
It’s up to the medical practitioners to decide.
Why?
Just because their brains are still developing doesn’t mean they aren’t developing wrong.
If the foundation is fucked the whole thing is gonna be fucked no matter how much time you give it.
Some people are unfortunately born with fucked foundations be they physical or mental.
Well you could be. Some people are just born that way.
Sure you can. Every psychopath, sociopath, narcissist was that when they were 12. They went on to do bad things later. What makes this person unusual is the lack of impulse control.
Nowhere near every sociopath goes on to do bad things. Most of them are normal people living among us.
It’s notable that there was a story roughly 15 years ago about a psychology researcher who put people into MRIs to scan their brains. He found out that psychopaths have different development than the general public. He put himself in for funsies and found that he has the same structural issues. When he asked his family about it, they confirmed that they had always known he was a psychopath.
To your point, you can absolutely be a functional member of society with one of these disorders, but the likelihood that you can’t be is also heavily increased.
Doing bad things and getting away with it.
Saying every psycopath was like that when he was 12 is not the same as saying every 12 year old with psychopathic behaviours went on to do bad things.
This girl went on to have a normal life after getting treated, for example: https://youtu.be/UNMUFlpIero
A twelve year old who stabs another twelve year old 19 times is outside of normal.
I’d be fine with executing anyone who does that, at any age, unless it’s in self defense.
I agree, it is not normal.
You must American, most of the civilized world would show compassion and try to help the preteen.
You would be fine with executing a 5yo who had a temper tantrum and stabbed their friend? You’d probably have to do it yourself, would you still be fine with it then? How would you like to do it? With a gun, or would you poison the 5yo?
OK, you’re definitely American, nobody but Americans have this distorted an idea of self-defense. Stabbing someone 19 times is never self-defense.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you consider yourself a religious person? If yes, what faith?
Just a question… Are there any mental health issues which cannot be treated? As you have worked in psychiatry, any input will be highly appreciated.
Schizophrenia can be untreatable.
Fachism sometimes too. \j
Of course, Hitchcock was his own sort of petty fascist on a film set (and a rapist), so he was probably not the best person to deliver that message.
I don’t disagree, I’m just saying…
That’s why we don’t let those people become presidents
That and he was British.
Kind of meant entertainers in general.
Psychologist here, depends on what you mean by treated. Most mental illnesses aren’t like a cold where you’re able to take some medication and get rid of it, they’re more like a chronic back injury that you learn to manage. For most people, some combination of therapy and chemical treatment is sufficient to allow them to live a life where their mental health is managed. There are people whom chemical treatment doesn’t work on, sometimes because of unhealthy brain chemistry, and who are unwilling or unable to participate in therapy. Unfortunately for these people, there’s not much that can be done for them short of a miracle.
Thank You for such a exhaustive reply… Treated meant can it be like a pill based solution… But as you mentioned it doesn’t work that way
Have you had any patients with a history of violence at this level?
I don’t work with patients, and my area of research doesn’t have much overlap with psychopathy or schizotypal behavior thankfully. My research subjects are screened to try and exclude people with those traits beforehand. I’ve known colleagues that have spent some time working for prison populations though, so if your question is whether I think this particular girl is beyond saving, not even close. Some of the stories my colleagues have told me about patients they had at prison, patients that scared them even when an armed guard was present, those patients don’t typically feel remorseful for what they’ve done or even acknowledge it was wrong. It seems like in this case, the girl got wrapped up in a fantasy that was encouraged when she was young by her friend, and nobody was there to intervene and push her back to reality. It’s just a sad tragedy. If anything, I’d be more worried about her succumbing to depression due to guilt.
My question was essentially “Are you speaking from experience or theory?”
Sounds like the answer is theory.
If you’d worked with someone who’d done attempted murder to this level, then seen them go on to lead an otherwise evil-free life, I’d consider that seriously.
I worked (admittedly as a custodian, so not an expert at all) in close contact with people who had antipersonality disorder. These were people who had been convicted of sexual assault and had served a sentence then had been deemed unfit to return to society. I don’t believe any of them could get any amount of treatment that would have made them truly safe around others, even if they behaved well on their wards.
Mental illness can almost never truly be cured, and some people can be simply too dangerous to be allowed complete freedom. It’s sad to think about, but I think until we have a better understanding of the mind and how to better treat people with issues like this, it’s better that certain people stay “locked up” as it were. So long as they are given humane treatment and accommodations, of course.
The mind or brain is so intricately wired that understanding it a quite a big task… But hope so one day medical research can bring solution to mental health problems… Till then fingers crossed
Even though three others have chimed in, as OP I’m gonna give it a go as well.
First off, I’m definitely not an expert. My job was mainly to stay with people who had been constrained to their bed, using leather straps. Other times to make sure the patient had as much freedom as possible, without doing certain things. So pretty low level stuff, like talking, minding my own business, and occasionally dodging fecal matter (not figuratively!)
I met adults who had been psychotic since their early teens. And I met people who were admitted on account of a bad reaction to drugs, mainly marijuana, resulting in them being aggressive and delusional. Then the next week they would be calm and rational, behaving like you and me.
I can’t tell you what can be treated, and what can’t. But I can tell you that I’ve met people who did stop being psychotic for the rest of their life. And I can tell you that far far most patients were able to, periodically, live somewhat ordinary lives after getting help.
You’re cute.
This is America.
Probably. But this is not the first time something like this happened
Well, there’s concerns here. The mind was able to be convinced of the reality of a clearly fictional character. The mind concluded on murder, of all things, as a solution to something. The mind did this almost entirely on its own, despite what it’s been taught and witnessed of others.
Because people can’t read minds, things observed of that mind will be very carefully assessed. Things like showing vivid imagination, unusual reaction, unusual phases of personality or empathy change, etc. And being so young, connections were likely shaped and formed in impressionable years and these are the hardest to undo; essentially things like personality are established by 12 and the core of it remains relatively unchanged for the entire life.
She could be ready; she could’ve been ready a few years ago. But it is the job of experts to ensure that mind is extremely unlikely to do that again, and that it isn’t vulnerable to change when released. Get that wrong and the loss is much higher than what is currently occurring.
That is one of the biggest difficulties when dealing with psychiatric patients- there is no straightforward “blood test” to determine what’s really going on.
While other branches of medicine can do an x-ray and see a broken bone, or do a blood test to determine blood sugar, mental health diagnosis relies on observation of the patient, interpreting their answers to questions, and relying on some amount of self assessment.
If the patient is intentionally “presenting well” in an attempt to “get out of the loonie bin”, it can make diagnosis and assessment extra challenging.
I’d recommend reading this article that was linked in the AP article which has more details about the sentence and following appeals:
https://apnews.com/article/morgan-geyser-slender-man-stabbing-release-petition-09a2537704c926675c39349a45f9bfde
The point is specifically to get them to the point where they can stand trial.
She did stand trial - she was sentenced.