this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
280 points (97.3% liked)

News

23622 readers
3991 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 150 points 2 months ago (7 children)

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?

[–] BigDanishGuy 94 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (9 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Well you could be. Some people are just born that way.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Schizophrenia can be untreatable.

Fachism sometimes too. \j

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 months ago

Was the psychiatric hospital meant to rehabilitate her?

You're cute.

This is America.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Probably. But this is not the first time something like this happened

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A lot of people in this thread really down playing or overlooking she willingly stabbed someone 19 times.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago

Carl, that kills people!

[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

For all of you saying this girl is a lost cause, I suggest you look into the Parker-Hulme murder. It was turned into the film Heavenly Creatures.

Two girls murdered one of the girls' mothers. It was a premeditated murder. The mother was not some horribly abusive woman, the kids had developed an incredibly unhealthy fantasy life which was replacing reality for them and they got separated. There was queerphobia involved, but it was the 1950s so that's not surprising, but the fantasy thing was a much bigger issue.

During their relationship, the girls invented their own personal religion, with their own ideas on morality. They rejected Christianity and worshipped their own saints, envisioning a parallel dimension called The Fourth World, essentially their version of Heaven. The Fourth World was a place that they felt they were already able to enter occasionally, during moments of spiritual enlightenment. By Parker's account, they had achieved this spiritual enlightenment because of their friendship.

Anyway, they decided to murder Hulme's mother so they could stay together and ended up both in prison. They were older than this woman was at the time they committed their murder.

Both were released after a five years in prison.

Neither murdered again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker%E2%80%93Hulme_murder_case

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago

Also, America’s extreme sentence lengths have not been found to reduce recidivism. I don’t like prisons in general, but in particular I hate that we seem to not give half a shit if the harm we authorize them to do actually improves anything, especially before allowing them to do more harm. This is especially true when we’re talking about someone who successfully pled insanity, which is really fucking difficult actually

I hope this woman gets the treatment she needs then is released and commits no more crime.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is also why conservatives rail against things like Dungeons and Dragons.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

well then they should do something about the Bible first

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

No, but you see, that’s different. Trust me, (wink).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Dungeon and Dragon players actually learn to follow rules.

Homebrew players are obviously satanists /s

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

I mean yeah, but this isn't a statistical sample, we should have meaningful data to give us recidivism rates for different crimes.

Sometimes the damage is deep, sometimes it's readily curable. Hard to tell which without work.

[–] PrincessLeiasCat 53 points 2 months ago

Damn, that was 10 years ago?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I remember when this happened. I think it's wild that she is still being detained for it.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It happens. I know a weird amount of people who stabbed someone as a kid. Two of them went to the same institution at different times and they both told told me about a girl was really tall, 6 foot at age 13, who had stabbed a few staffers with shanks and almost started a number of fires.

Apparently the staff told them she would never have a moment of freedom in her life.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Did the staff tell her she would never have a moment of freedom in her life before the stabbing and the fires started? Because that might explain them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

So many people like to ignore that mentally ill people are rarely acting out just to act out. Yes it happens, but often there’s a line of reasoning, including emotional disregulation and failure to appropriately escalate. Take someone with those traits, lock them up, and add distress to them (especially when you’re frustrated at their behavior) and they’re prone to do whatever they think they can.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (14 children)

.. really? It's really crazy to you that someone who ~~murdered~~ attempted to murder a little girl and blamed a meme has been in a mental hospital for 10 years?

Edit: meh. I'm at a "everyone sucks here" conclusion. The abusers suck, and the US prison / mental health "totally not prison" systems all suck.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That 'someone" was a mentally ill child. Yes it's crazy to lock up a twelve year old for 10+ years. Period. Full stop. But beyond that especially one that was mentally ill at the time who you were supposed to be treating for the last ten years.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You've misread. She is and has been in a mental health facility this whole time.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

I didn't misread, being in a criminal mental health facility is being locked up. In the US they no better than prisons.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I think you need to read up on what they do to kids in such facilities.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] darkdemize 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just to be clear, the victim survived the stabbing. Not that that changes the intent of the crime.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I remember this one too. Going back and reading one of the articles from when it happened, and I just don't have words for it.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/justice/wisconsin-girl-stabbed/index.html

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

According to the criminal complaint, the suspects had been planning the attack since February.

They first thought to kill the victim by placing duct tape over her mouth while she was sleeping and stabbing her in the neck, the complaint says.

Next, the plan was to kill her in a park bathroom where there was a floor drain that could make cleanup easier, it continued.

But, finally, the girls decided to carry out the attack in the park while playing a game of hide-and-seek, the complaint says.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Winnebago Mental Health Institute

Sounds chill

load more comments
view more: next ›