Latest news with #psychiatricHospital


The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Slender Man case: woman who stabbed classmate to be released from psychiatric hospital
A 22-year-old woman who stabbed a classmate a decade ago believing that the act would earn her the right to be servant of Slender Man, a fictional supernatural character, is set to be released from a Wisconsin psychiatric hospital. Waukesha county circuit Judge Scott Wagner agreed on Thursday to the conditional release of Morgan Geyser from Winnebago mental health institute, a psychiatric hospital where she has spent the last seven years. In 2014, Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their friend Payton Leutner to join a game of hide-and-seek in heavily wooded Davids Park near Waukesha, Wisconsin. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times, nearly killing her, while Weier egged her on. All three girls were 12 years old at the time. Geyser and Weier later told investigators they had committed the crime to appease Slender Man, a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid character that originated as a creepypasta internet meme created by a Something Awful forum user, Eric Knudsen, in 2009. Five hours after the attack, Weier and Geyser were arrested in a nearby furniture store, still in possession of the knife used in the stabbing, and told police they were going to meet Slender Man at Slender Mansion in a forest 200 miles away. Geyser later disclosed lifelong visual and auditory hallucinations that included figures she interpreted as ghosts, colors melting down walls, and imaginary friends. Her mother described her as being 'floridly psychotic' and she was later diagnosed with early onset childhood schizophrenia. Geyser ultimately pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2017 but claimed she wasn't responsible because she was mentally ill. She was later committed to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years. Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon. Like Geyser, she claimed she was mentally ill and not responsible for her actions. She was committed to 25 years in a mental hospital but was granted release in 2021. The case drew widespread attention, in part because the character Slender Man had been photo-edited into everyday images of children at play, creating a disturbing juxtaposition of childhood innocence and the transition to a more complex, adult understanding of reality. Subsequent efforts to secure Geyer's release from the psychiatric home have taken several turns. Earlier this year, a judge ruled she could be released after three experts testified she has made progress and argued that she did not present a future risk. But in March, Payton Leutner, the mother of the victim, said the group home that Geyser was to be released to was eight miles away from where she lives. Wisconsin health officials were ordered to come up with a new plan. State health officials also argued that she didn't volunteer to her therapy team that she had read Rent Boy, a novel about murder and selling organs on the black market, and alleged she had communicated with a man who collects murder memorabilia. 'The state has real concerns these things are, frankly, just red flags at this point,' said Abbey Nickolie, the Waukesha county prosecutor, at the hearing. But Geyser's attorney Tony Cotton described the state's request to keep her in hospital as a 'hit job' and said his client was 'not more dangerous today'. But Thursday, the plan to release Geyser, which has not been made public, was approved. Geyser's attorney, who did not respond to requests for comment, told the court that his client needs to be involved in the community and needs to 'move on with her life', reported TMJ-TV Milwaukee.


The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Slender Man case: woman who stabbed classmate to be released from psychiatric hospital
A 22-year-old woman who stabbed a classmate a decade ago believing that the act would earn her the right to be servant of Slender Man, a fictional supernatural character, is set to released from a Wisconsin psychiatric hospital. Waukesha county circuit Judge Scott Wagner agreed on Thursday to the conditional release of Morgan Geyser from Winnebago mental health institute, a psychiatric hospital where she has spent the last seven years. In 2014, Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their friend Payton Leutner to join a game of hide-and-seek in heavily wooded Davids Park near Waukesha, Wisconsin. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times, nearly killing her, while Weier egged her on. All three girls were 12 years old at the time. Geyser and Weier later told investigators they had committed the crime to appease Slender Man, a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid character that originated as a creepypasta internet meme created by Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen in 2009. Five hours after the attack, Weier and Geyser were arrested in a nearby furniture store, still in possession of the knife used in the stabbing, and told police they were going to meet Slender Man at Slender Mansion in a forest 200 miles away. Geyser later disclosed lifelong visual and auditory hallucinations that included figures she interpreted as ghosts, colors melting down walls, and imaginary friends. Her mother described her as being 'floridly psychotic' and she was later diagnosed with early onset childhood schizophrenia. Geyser ultimately pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in 2017 but claimed she wasn't responsible because she was mentally ill. She was later committed to a psychiatric hospital for 40 years. Weier pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon. Like Geyser, she claimed she was mentally ill and not responsible for her actions. She was committed to 25 years in a mental hospital but was granted release in 2021. The case drew widespread attention, in part because the character Slender Man had been photo-edited into everyday images of children at play, creating a disturbing juxtaposition of childhood innocence and the transition to a more complex, adult understanding of reality. Subsequent efforts to secure Geyer's release from the psychiatric home have taken several turns. Earlier this year, a judge ruled she could be released after three experts testified she has made progress and argued that she did not present a future risk. But in March, Payton Leutner, the mother of the victim, said the group home that Geyser was to be released to was eight miles away from where she lives. Wisconsin health officials were ordered to come up with a new plan. State health officials also argued that she didn't volunteer to her therapy team that she had read Rent Boy, a novel about murder and selling organs on the black market, and alleged she had communicated with a man who collects murder memorabilia. 'The state has real concerns these things are, frankly, just red flags at this point,' said Abbey Nickolie, the Waukesha county prosecutor, at the hearing. But Geyser's attorney Tony Cotton described the state's request to keep her in hospital as a 'hit job' and said his client was 'not more dangerous today'. But Thursday, the plan to release Geyser, which has not been made public, was approved. Geyser's attorney, who did not respond to requests for comment, told the court that his client needs to be involved in the community and needs to 'move on with her life', reported TMJ-TV Milwaukee.


BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
'My disabled son was punched' - how a CCTV error exposed major abuse scandal
Warning - this story contains details some people may find Glynn Brown was told that his severely disabled adult son, Aaron, may have been assaulted by staff at a psychiatric hospital, he was shocked and wanted to know exactly what had happened, but could not ask Aaron, who is non-verbal and whom he describes as having the mental age of a was told there was no video evidence because CCTV cameras, installed throughout Muckamore Abbey Hospital six months earlier, had never been switched this was far from the case. In fact, what police officers found when they visited the hospital in September 2017, triggered the UK's largest adult safeguarding investigation and made the hospital one of the nation's biggest ever crime scenes - according to data released by the to staff, the CCTV cameras had been mistakenly left running for the six months since their installation, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).A staggering 300,000 hours of footage was discovered - equivalent to 34 years' worth. It revealed not only the alleged assault on Aaron, but hundreds of other incidents carried out by hospital almost eight years after the discovery, no cases have come to trial and the hospital has not been closed. A separate public inquiry is also yet to report is more, the patients' families still have not been allowed to see the CCTV footage. BBC File on 4 Investigates has now obtained descriptions of what the footage include accounts of patients facing appalling cruelty and physical abuse, and being ignored while seriously unwell. They describe: Vulnerable young adults being punched, kicked, dragged across floors, tipped off furniture and having balls kicked at themPossessions being taken away, shoes being dangled from one patient's ears and crisps packets pushed into another's faceEmotional abuse, including patients with severe learning disabilities being provoked into a reaction and then restrained and placed in seclusion Families say they have been told they are unable to view the footage to prevent any prejudice of criminal investigations."We're left to conjure up these images in our own mind as to what has happened to our loved ones," Glynn told us. The task of reviewing the footage was originally undertaken by Belfast Health Trust, even though it was responsible for managing Muckamore watched samples of the footage from eight different cameras, at up to eight times normal speed - an "impossible" task, according to one of the fresh horrifying details about Aaron's treatment became a regular occurrence for his Friday for months, Glynn received a grim phone call from the reviewers, detailing new incidents. He says he lost count at about 200."I was told there were videos of him being kicked, punched, trailed across the floor with his genitals exposed," he the PSNI seized all the footage themselves and appeared astonished by what they found. After an early police review of the CCTV, officers said in just one of four wards with cameras being investigated, they had identified 1,500 "crimes".One of the most striking features of the descriptions of footage obtained by the BBC is the scale of staff neglect. Patients are frequently described as being ignored - even when seriously to the descriptions, one was locked in a room for 18 hours on one day, and frequently left without access to a bathroom, despite being incontinent. Muckamore Abbey is the largest systemic abuse case uncovered in the UK, according to Prof Andrew McDonnell, a clinical psychologist, who advised BBC Panorama on a 2011 investigation into abuse at Winterbourne View, a private hospital near Bristol."The sheer volume and scale of it - it dwarfs anything I've ever seen before," he McDonnell says he can't understand why there is such little public awareness of the scandal outside Northern Ireland.A public inquiry, which sat from 2022 until March 2025, is expected to deliver its final report and recommendations later this year. However, it has attracted criticism from the families of patients, who do not think that hospital managers have been rigorously says it feels like nobody is to blame and nobody will be held culpable."We expected a robust interrogation," Glynn says. "We thought we'd find out all the answers to all our questions." Disappointment has also been expressed that the inquiry did not call any of Northern Ireland's health ministers to give evidence - unlike the Post Office Inquiry where a minister was questioned over his refusal to meet campaigner Sir Alan criticisms are echoed by public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally, who has led a number of reviews into health service failures, including an NHS panel on Winterbourne agrees that managers have not been sufficiently held to account at the inquiry: "Imagine that the people representing the families and the patients cannot directly ask questions to the witnesses - I find that astounding."Dr Scally also says the inquiry has been needlessly protracted and has lost its "sense of outrage".In a statement, the Muckamore Abbey Inquiry expressed disappointment with Dr Scally's comments, ahead of the publication of its report. It said that lawyers for families of patients were able to make an application to the chair to ask witnesses questions directly - but none had been than 180 witnesses had given evidence, including senior figures, a spokesperson said, and the decision not to call any ministers was the subject of a judicial review which had been dismissed. Senior officials from Belfast Health Trust told the inquiry they did not have concerns about Muckamore prior to the CCTV footage being the BBC has learned that three meetings were held between a health watchdog and the Trust over concerns about the hospital in the three years before the than 200 substantiated reports of abuse were also recorded there in 2014, according to inspections by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority - although these may have included incidents where patients abused parent, Catherine Fox, says she had repeatedly complained about the treatment of her daughter, Alicia, before the CCTV footage was says Alicia was being kept in seclusion - something meant to be used only as a last resort - for hours on end, in a very small room. There was no bathroom and the buzzer to call staff did not work."I would say it was a form of torture, and it was also a form of instilling fear, and no-one else will convince me of anything different," she was so "horrified" she took her complaints to a Stormont health minister, who replied to say her concerns were a matter for the health trust. Patients' families have formed a group called Action for Muckamore which campaigns for mandatory CCTV installation in places where vulnerable people are cared for - a move supported by force told the BBC that 122 people have been reported to Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS). To date, 38 people have been arrested - and some have gone on to plead not guilty. PSNI said it submitted its first file to the PPS more than five years PPS said 15 suspects are currently before the courts and that the progress of cases is also the responsibility of the defence and judges. In a statement to the BBC, the Belfast Health Trust apologised to families and said some staff have been dismissed. It said it would be inappropriate to comment on other specific issues while the inquiry was ongoing - as did the Department of Health in Northern Aaron is now in supported living and doing "brilliantly", according to son is able to go on trips every day, he says - especially to the donkey park and his beloved Nando' is still frustrated that nobody yet has been held responsible for the events at Muckamore Abbey, but he carries on campaigning for justice."Once the world sees the footage," he says, "there will be a profound understanding of how bad and malign the scandal is." You can reach Noel directly and securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +44 7809 334720, by email at or on SecureDrop