WAUKESHA, Wisconsin — A 12-year-old girl charged with trying to stab a classmate to death last year must remain in secure juvenile detention pending her trial, a judge ruled Friday.
Lawyers for Morgan Geyser last week requested that her $500,000 bail be reduced to a signature bond and that she be allowed to move to Milwaukee Academy, an all-girls residential treatment center in Wauwatosa.
But Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren said that because the facility is not secured, Geyser would be considered a flight risk, even as he admitted that, on its face, it might seem preposterous that a 12-year-old girl would flee.
He noted that Geyser is accused of plotting the attack for months in a way that showed “ingenuity, drive and focus,” and that she and her co-defendant have been described as very intelligent.
Bohren did leave open the possibility of letting Geyser move to a different facility, if an appropriate one can be found, since he also acknowledged the Washington County juvenile detention center where Geyser is now housed is not designed to hold people long term.
Geyser and Anissa Weier, now 13, are charged as adults with the attempted first-degree intentional homicide of Payton Leutner on May 31, after a sleepover at Geyser’s house to mark Geyser’s 12th birthday. The girls told police they were trying to impress or appease Slender Man, a fictional Internet character they believed could kill them or their families.
In his motion to modify bail, Geyser’s attorney Anthony Cotton noted that she “desperately needs treatment for her mental illness” and can’t get it at the juvenile detention center in West Bend. Geyser has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.
Geyser has been unrestrained during her stays in West Bend and the Winnebago Mental Health Center and has not exhibited any violence, according to the motion.
She appeared at Friday’s hearing via video conference from the West Bend detention center. As they have at every court appearance, her parents sat in a front row of Bohren’s courtroom and declined to talk with reporters afterward.
Cotton told Bohren on Friday that staff at the West Bend juvenile jail have noticed some regression in Geyser’s apparent mental condition and stressed again the importance of early treatment of schizophrenia.
Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewiczv, in opposing Cotton’s request, said Geyer’s mental problems only exacerbate her danger to the community.
Milwaukee Academy’s website describes its programming as aimed at girls “who are presenting a pattern of behavioral and mental health symptoms such as emotional disturbance, aggressive behaviors, substance abuse and self-harming behaviors, which are inhibiting their ability to remain safely in their community.”
Cotton’s motion states the facility “integrates clinical services, a structured therapeutic environment and education,” and the staff is trained to treat complex psychiatric cases.
Previously, Bohren had ordered Geyser to remain at the Winnebago state hospital, where she had gone for competency treatment. But Cotton said the facility refused to accept Geyser once she was deemed competent.
Geyser and Weier have separate hearings scheduled to argue that their cases should be transferred to juvenile court. Weier also is being held on $500,000 bail at the West Bend detention center.
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