WAUKESHA, Wis. (CN) — A young woman convicted of attempting to murder her friend in 2014 due to the influence of an online horror character asked to be released from a Wisconsin mental health facility on Wednesday.
Morgan Geyser, 21, has been confined at the Winnebago Mental Health Institution since 2018 for her role in the near-fatal stabbing of her friend Payton Leutner, a macabre crime between preteen girls that sparked global headlines and the 2016 HBO documentary “Beware the Slenderman.”
Geyser outlined a proposed release plan in court filings that explained her mental condition has steadily improved and is “on a positive trajectory” following years of individualized treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety and other conditions in part brought on by “pervasive and long-term sexual abuse by her father,” who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The release plan proposes that she proceed with her medication regiment and be released into inpatient treatment followed by a residential treatment program for PTSD, both of which would be administered through Rogers Behavioral Health.
On Wednesday, Geyser’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, reiterated some of these aspects of Geyser’s recovery before Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren — the same judge who presided over the Slenderman case’s high-profile trial and sentenced Geyser and co-defendant Anissa Weier.
Geyser appeared in person in Bohren’s court with her lawyers on Wednesday, wearing shackles and orange jail garb.
Geyser and Weier stabbed Leutner in the woods near Geyser’s home in Waukesha on the morning of May 31, 2014, after the three friends, then 12 years old, had a sleepover together.
The girls felt compelled to commit the murder to appease and protect their families from Slenderman, a faceless fictional boogeyman that circulated on social media and horror forums starting in 2009. The character’s mythology includes kidnapping children, stalking darkened woods and using paranormal powers to manipulate the psychology of victims and “proxies,” as Geyser and Weier believed they were.
Leutner survived with 19 stab wounds requiring several surgeries and a weeklong hospitalization. Geyser and Weier said they were walking to Slenderman’s mansion in the Wisconsin Northwoods about 300 miles away when they were apprehended by sheriff’s deputies hours after the attack.
It later emerged that Geyser came up with the murder idea and planned it with Weier months ahead of time. She was sentenced to 40 years’ initial confinement at the Winnebago facility after being found not guilty by reason of insanity, and her appeals to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and the Wisconsin Supreme Court failed.
In a brief supporting Geyser’s release plan, she said she realizes her actions were “horrendous and nearly fatal” and that “[Geyser] has expressed that she will never forgive herself for what she did to someone she loved."
During testimony on Wednesday from Deborah Collins, a forensic psychologist who has examined Geyser at least a half dozen times since 2014, Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz pointed out more troubling aspects of Geyser’s treatment history, including that she recently reported faking her schizophrenia.
Collins, who was initially hired by the defense to examine Geyser days after the crime and deemed her unfit for release in 2022 and 2023, called Geyser’s case a “diagnostic conundrum.” The doctor again concluded after a 2024 examination that Geyser is not ready to leave the Winnebago facility, though she characterized it as “a challenging call.”
Assuming her current trajectory continues, “her readiness for conditional release in the coming months will follow,” Collins said.
In response to Cotton’s cross-examination, Collins said Geyser has earned the highest levels of liberty and privileges at the Winnebago facility, and she has had multiple successful supervised outings at thrift stores, coffee shops and restaurants.
Collins additionally noted during cross-examination that Geyser may not actually have been faking her now apparently receded psychosis.
Bohren asked Collins why Geyser would have self-reported faking her symptoms if she was not. Collins responded that she did not know.
“She’s a bright young woman,” Collins said of Geyser at one point, noting that the defendant has an IQ of 129. The defendant has long hoped to someday become a writer, the doctor said, and she has expressed an interest in becoming a certified nursing assistant.
Brooke Lundbohm, another psychologist who examined Geyser this year, also did not recommend she be released. Lundbohm’s opinion was that in the past Geyser had displayed “flagrant” psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations.
Lundbohm cast doubt on the reliability of Geyser self-reporting having faked psychotic symptoms for years, pointing to Geyser deceiving the court and numerous doctors. She noted that Geyser at one point intimated during an examination that she had a better chance of being released if she was found not to be schizophrenic.
Lundbohm largely agreed with Collins that questions of Geyser’s credibility makes determining her true mental status difficult. Despite some notable gains, the doctor said Geyser still displays concerning mood instability and could present a danger to herself or others.
No ruling on Geyser’s release was made at the close of proceedings on Wednesday. Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday morning.
Weier, now 22, was given 25 years’ confinement at the same facility as Geyser, though the two had no contact. She successfully petitioned for release into her father’s custody in 2021, and two years later Bohren removed her from 24/7 GPS monitoring upon the recommendation of the state Department of Corrections, though she remains under certain supervision and restrictions on her movement.
As proposed by Geyser’s lawyers, a condition of her potential release would be that she continues to have no contact with Weier or Leutner.
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