On May 31, 2014, in Waukesha, Wisconsin Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser stabbed Payton Leutner a total of 19 times. Though Leutner survived, the event became infamous because of the young age of the perpetrators and victims and its relation to the fictional character Slenderman. So much so that the ordeal is more popularly known as the Slenderman stabbing by the public.

All three were 12-year-olds when Geyser and Weier decided to lure Leutner into the forest and stab her to ‘please Slenderman.’ Both Weier and Geyser were arrested but not found guilty by insanity, ultimately being condemned to mental facilities.

Going into specifics, Weier had shared delusional disorder, a disorder where you take on the same delusional thoughts as someone else. In contrast, the stem of the delusion was likely Geyser’s early onset schizophrenia. Geyser confessed to hallucinations and delusions during her initial neuropsych evaluation. For Weier, it was the closeness of the relationship that allowed her to take on Geyser’s delusions.

Still, the main aggressor and ‘mastermind’ was Geyser who targeted Leutner for unknown reasons.

Weier was sentenced to 25 years though was released in 2021 under strict conditions. Geyser, on the other hand, was sentenced to 40 years to life and has made a total of three petitions for her release. The most recent one culminated in her conditional release several days ago. This third petition has gotten more interest as she appeared fit for release.

Her third petition involved the law and argued Geyser had the right to a re-evaluation. This re-evaluation occurred with the same three psychologists from her initial assessment. Her case was bolstered by the fact that Geyser had gained lots of privileges and shown good behavior since her arrest.

My opinion is that Geyser has been failed by the modern justice system. After the immediate event, it made sense to evaluate and secure her. However, psychiatric hospitals are not for the long term, they are for restabilization.

To allow Geyser a true chance at life, she needed intensive outpatient care. Schizophrenia does not get treated inside hospitals. Schizophrenia in bad cases gets confined to hospitals, and there is a time and a place for that, but it is not here. Geyser needed the diagnosis set and the resources for her future battle with the mental illness. Instead, the justice system sent her away and held her without sound grounds.

Geyser could learn how to integrate herself back into society and learn how to cope with and reduce the illness while attempting a normal life. Of course, there is an argument for the effect on the victim, Luetner. This is not to take for granted and that makes it a difficult case as Geyser did almost commit murder. For this, I say it was completely preventable and did not have to be the case to start.

Now for how to prevent incidents such as the stabbing. The world as a whole needs to be more informed about mental illness and given the right resources for every situation. If more people in Geyser’s life were observant of schizophrenic symptoms or she knew of the abnormalities herself, this could have been caught and prevented. Granted, the world has gotten a lot better with this, but it still needs work.