‘Slender Man’ stabbing inmate told therapist she’d ‘never known how to care’, release bid hearing is told
A woman asking to be released from a 40 year sentence in a psychiatric institute for attempting to murder a classmate ten years ago, in order to please a fictional character, told her therapist in October that she had “never known how to care”.
Morgan Geyser, 21, was 12 when she and Anissa Weier lured fellow sixth-grader Payton Leutner into Wisconsin woodland and stabbed her on 21 May 2014.
The pair were doing it in the name of the character known as “Slender Man”, in order to become his servants and protect their families from him.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, with the judge sentencing her to decades at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute.
Her attorneys now argue that she is in a position to go home, with the first of a two-day hearing getting underway on Wednesday afternoon.
Ms Leutner’s parents appeared via Zoom for the hearing, while other family members were in the courtroom.
Three doctors had prepared reports on Geyser ahead of the hearing, while a Department of Health and Human Services report was also filed.
Psychologist Dr. Deborah Collins was the first to be called to the stand. She was originally retained by Geyser’s defence lawyers in 2014, not long after her arrest, and has met her multiple times.
The doctor said she felt that Geyser had made progress towards being ready for release, but that she was not yet there.
One of the reasons for that conclusion came from notes taken during an individual therapy session between Geyser and a therapist at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Dr. Collins read the patient’s comments from the record.
“How do you think I was able to repeatedly stab my best friend and b****face [Weier] thought she was all the brains? I was pulling her along, too,” Geyser told her therapist in October. “I didn’t care, I couldn’t care, I’ve never known how to care.”
Dr. Collins said those could have been emotionally-charged comments made during a therapy session, but even so, to say that so close to petitioning for release was “a potential red flag”.
The doctor was asked to explain her history with Geyser’s case, which stretched back to 2014.
“My initial impressions included that Ms Geyser was not well, psychiatrically,” She said. “That she had experienced trauma, certainly, in the commission of the offences and that she also presented as quite odd during the two and a half hour interview I had with her.”
- For more: Elrisala website and for social networking, you can follow us on Facebook
- Source of information and images “independent”“
