Woman convicted in 'Slender Man' stabbing petitions Waukesha court again for conditional release during hearing
WAUKESHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- On Thursday, Sept. 3, the woman convicted in the Slender Man stabbing case of her classmate 12 years ago had a court hearing to discuss the possibility of conditional release.
Morgan Geyser appeared in court via Zoom.
She's allowed to petition for conditional release every six months.
Last summer, a Waukesha County judge formally signed off on Geyser's conditional release, and she was placed into a group home in Madison in September.
But two months later, Geyser escaped and was later found by a truck stop outside of Chicago. When she was brought back to Wisconsin, that release was revoked in December.
Geyser's attorney, Anthony Cotton, told CBS 58 on Thursday he doesn't believe she's dangerous, but instead made a bad and impulsive decision.
“You can criticize, and people will criticize, and it’s appropriate to criticize what Morgan did. Leaving a group home was a bad idea but she didn’t do something violent, she didn’t do something dangerous, she wasn’t armed, she didn’t hurt anybody," Cotton said.
He also placed blame on the group home itself.
"Terrible place, bad conditions, poor oversight. Morgan felt like she didn't have any similarly-aged peers that were there, there were people there who were profoundly mentally ill that she felt like were in a worse spot than her," Cotton said, noting that if she were to be released, officials would look for a different remote home. "Just because you find a group home doesn't necessarily mean that that's the right fit."
Cotton said Geyser is now facing repercussions from her attempted escape as she sits inside of a state mental institution in Winnebago.
"She's now deprived of her liberty, she's not free to leave, she's in a more restrictive setting, so there's a myriad of consequences she's suffered as a result of this bad decision," Cotton said.
During the hearing, the state, however, said they have concerns.
"Anytime that someone blatantly violates that pretty standard rule, of this is where you're going to reside, there's going to be dangerousness concerns on behalf of the state," said attorney Abbey Nickolie. "I'm very, very interested to see how stable these doctors believe that she is now, because the state has concerns that if there's still underlying issues or things that need to be dealt with, that perhaps more time in an institution would be appropriate before we tried conditional release again."
The hearing was held to appoint doctors to evaluate Geyser -- and the ones selected previously signed off on her release.
"She's gonna make mistakes. She's not a perfect person. She's gonna have struggles. The question becomes are those struggles significant enough and dangerous enough that it ought to require her to be in a locked institution?" Cotton said.
Her next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9.