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Morgan Geyser won’t continue her treatment outside the mental institution to which she has been committed for six years.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael O. Bohren on Thursday denied the petition for conditional release of Geyser, who in 2017 was found not guilty by reason of mental defect in the 2014 attempted murder of Payton Leutner in Waukesha in the so-called Slender Man case.
His ruling means that Geyser, who will be 22 in May, will remain solely under the care of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh for now, eliminating the option of an immediate plan to transition out of the facility. While she can again petition for conditional release in six months, she remains under the 40-year commitment term ordered by Bohren in 2018.
The basis of his decision rested on whether Bohren felt her release to a group home or some form of inpatient care outside a secure mental health facility represented a risk to the community or to Geyser herself. “What this court’s responsibility is, is to be sure that the risk is lessened,” Bohren said in his order, which he read Thursday afternoon.
The question of risk to the community at large stems from the nature of the attack in 2014, when Geyser, along with codefendant Anissa Weier, stabbed Leutner 19 times in the wooded area east of Davids Park in the southern edge of the city of Waukesha.
Since the beginning, the case revolved around the belief by both Geyser and Weier, both 12 at the time, that they felt they had to appease Slender Man, a fictional online character who was elevated in their minds to a real figure — one who could hurt them or their families if he wasn’t satisfied. The strange belief largely was attributed to Geyser’s early-onset schizophrenia, a psychosis for which she was diagnosed shortly after they were taken into custody.
Bohren’s ruling came followed the testimony of four mental health doctors who have been directly involved with evaluating Geyser or aiding in her treatment for years.
Psychologists weigh in on Geyser’s mental history and current state
In testimony Wednesday, two psychologists who have evaluated Geyser over the years, including more recent assessments tied to her conditional release petition, spoke about dual aspects of Geyser’s current mental state.
On one hand, Dr. Deborah Collins, a psychologist whose consultation business contracts with the state for mental health assessments, expressed concerns that Geyser continues to struggle with difficult psychological symptoms. They include post traumatic stress disorder, social anxieties and personality disorders, all of which make her conditional release problematic until she can build better coping mechanisms.
But Collins also said evaluations suggest that Geyser is making progress. Her diagnosis no longer includes unspecified schizophrenic spectrum disorder, a psychosis that was considered a major factor in her attack on Leutner in 2014, when Geyser believed she was acting as “a proxy for Slender Man.”
She said Geyser’s progress and psychosis-free profile suggest she might be eligible for conditional release in a timeframe measured by months, not years, at this point.
“On balance, I believe my report has captured the salient points,” Collins said, explaining why she could not support immediate conditional release.
Dr. Brooke Lundbohm, a licensed psychologist who has also done work in Collins’ Behavioral Consultants Inc. business and evaluated Geyser as far back as 2014, concurred, though acknowledging that the Geyser’s development as she has gotten older has changed her mental health outlook somewhat.
Geyser’s claims to have ‘faked’ psychosis impede evaluators’ confidence
But both Collins and Lundbohm expressed concerns about one Geyser’s more recent claims: that she had “faked” psychotic behavior in 2014 when she was first evaluated and later.
Her lead defense attorney, Anthony Cotton, acknowledged the idea that had been raised earlier by Collins. In short, through questioning, he sought confirmation about the possibility that Geyser had sought refuge in a pretend psychosis to be institutionalized — for the sole purpose of avoiding a return home, where, according to testimony, Geyser had cited repeat instances of sexual assault by her father. That’s an allegation that wasn’t revealed to mental health professions until the past three years, and then only by Geyser after her father’s death.
The faked-psychosis claim itself is a red flag, Collins said.
“My concern is the accuracy of that perspective that she offered in 2020 to a treating psychiatrist and why she offered it,” she said. “Because the overwhelming amount of medical reports that were accrued for the many years preceding that pointed in the direction of bona-fide psychotic symptoms.”
Her concern was echoed by Lundbohm, who said she sensed Geyser may have considered whether removing the label of schizophrenia from her medical records would aid in her effort to obtain conditional release from Winnebago.
“There’s an acknowledgement by Miss Geyser that credibility is huge problem here,” Lundbohm said. “There does seem to be a significant issue with the change in conceptualization or her own way of describing her mental illness that raises significant complications.”
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.
In response to questions by defense attorney Bradley Novreske, Lundbohm acknowledged that Geyser hasn’t tried to hide symptoms from her treatment team and has functioned effectively after ending anti-psychosis medication. But Geyser still reported hearing voices prior to a suicide attempt at Winnebago in 2021 that caused serious injuries. She warned that factors, such as extreme stress, could result in the reemergence of psychotic symptoms.
“I am not in support of her petition for conditional release at this time,” Lundbohm said.
Other doctors argue Geyser’s need for conditional release
But a pair of doctors — one called by the defense and the other by Judge Bohren himself — on Thursday notably disagreed with the final assessments of both Collins and Lundbohm.
Dr. Kenneth Robbins, whose background included a stint in the 1990s as a medical director at the Mendota Mental Health Hospital, first evaluated Geyser in 2014 on behalf of her defense team, and again in 2015 and 2017. He said he concurred with other reports that there was no question Geyser suffered from a psychosis prior to her treatment.
But her current circumstances, given her age and need for natural socialization, warrant her conditional release into another setting outside Winnebago, particularly a group home where she could get support and therapy, Robbins told the court.
“My opinion is that this is an appropriate time for her to be conditionally released,” he said. The time now was ideal, Robbins added, “because Morgan has improved quite dramatically and needs things that the institution can no longer offer. I think she hasn’t benefited a great deal by being at Winnebago in many different ways, but I think she has reached the end of what Winnebago can help her with.”
Those needs include the kind of socialization she should have experienced in adolescence and still needs to develop now, he said.
“At some point, if she’s at an institution for too long, I’m afraid she is going to get stuck and not be able mature in the way adolescents mature. … At some point, that becomes more challenging.”
In his report and in testimony Thursday, Robbins stated that Geyser is not considered violent — and hasn’t been since the attack on Leutner nearly 10 years ago.
“There really hasn’t been, since her admission to Winnebago, any serious dangerousness to others,” he said. “She has been at some risk to herself, with cutting (herself), swallowing a battery, and then in 2021 with a more serious suicide attempt. But nothing since then.”
Similarly, Dr. Kayla Pope, Winnebago’s medical director who was asked by Bohren to listen to testimony over the two hearing dates, stated flatly that her institution no longer serves a key function for Geyser’s care, including lessening any danger risk.
“I think at this point she is safe to return to the community, and I don’t know there’s much that can be done to make her safer,” Pope said.
She particularly disagreed with elements of Lundbohm’s report to the court, which she felt overstated comments Geyser had made in talk therapy sessions about her own mental outlook. She agreed more with Robbins’ assessments, including the importance of socialization.
“I do think that critical period for development is closing,” Pope said.
Both Robbins and Pope endorsed a plan proposed by the Geyser and her defense team that includes a transition period in a group home setting. They said such facilities include the kind of immediate care she might need to lessen a crisis while allowing her to learn to cope with her feelings as she understands her mental state better.
Attorneys highlight disagreements voiced by four experts
Not surprisingly, Cotton and Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz differed on what weight they put on each of the four doctors’ reports and testimony.
Szczupakiewicz was particularly troubled by the recent assertion by Geyser that psychosis wasn’t behind the attack by Geyser, and that it was instead part of a plan to escape an abusive home life. That allegation solely came from Geyser, and only after years of doctor evaluations that universally concurred in their schizophrenia diagnoses.
“The motivation here is no longer clear,” he said.
Regardless, he trusted the conclusions of Collins and Lundbohm most because of their detailed and “thorough” reports, compared to a six-page summary by Robbins and Pope’s brief verbal summary via Zoom. He noted Collins and Lundbohm both concurred Geyser’s release would eventually happen with further care, but that “it’s just not there yet.”
Cotton countered that both Robbins and Pope have served as medical directors of mental health institutions, and that both have been closely involved with Geyser since 2014 as professionals. Their views that Geyser was ready for transitional care elsewhere were significant, he said.
More than that, Cotton said the statute makes it clear that the state’s burden is high in assessing risk to the community. Because several reports indicated that Geyser is no longer a danger, he felt the court must order her conditional release.
“There is no way the state has met this burden,” he said.
Bohren expresses concern about Geyser’s credibility in mental health claims
But Bohren, prior to announcing his ruling, acknowledged that the court was shaken by newly reported claims by Geyser that she acted violently not because she was psychotic, but because she had been assaulted at home, making that the “motivating circumstance.”
“You have to rely on the reporter (in a mental health assessment), so the credibility of the reporter is exceptionally important,” Bohren said.
For that reason, he added, the idea that she can safely be released from the Winnebago facility is challenged by her recent assertions and whether she truly understands her mental state. That’s particularly important given what he called the “brutal” nature of the crime, in which Leutner was stabbed 19 times and left to die, that led to her commitment.
“This is bloody, it’s gory, but that kind of dangerous conduct is what the risk is,” Bohren said. “Do we know if someone will repeat it? We don’t know.”
The 2024 petition marked the third time Geyser has sought conditional release. The first two petitions, including the first in 2022, were withdrawn by Geyser herself following doctors reports.
Weier was granted conditional release in 2021 four years after the start of her 25-year commitment term, after she was also found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of mental defect. She was subsequently freed from electronic monitoring in 2023, according to court records.
Contact reporter Jim Riccioli atjames.riccioli@jrn.com.
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