If you’re unfamiliar with the Slender Man attempted murder case, here’s a quick recap: Slender Man is a web meme that depicts a shadowy, faceless figure who might have tentacles. Two preteen girls obsessed with Slender Man reportedly stab a classmate 19 times in a park as a pledge of allegiance to him. The victim was found alive, a knife was discovered on one of the girls, and the now-14-year-olds are being tried for first-degree attempted murder as adults.
It’s now being reported that Morgan Geyser, one of the alleged attackers, has officially filed a plea of not guilty due to mental illness. A Wisconsin judge has now ordered two doctors to evaluate Geyser’s mental state. According to Fox News, Geyser’s lawyers have issue with the evaluations:
Her lawyer is concerned that more than two years after the crime, with medication, she is completely different.
“They’re not getting the same picture of Morgan that they would have gotten shortly after the event,” said Anthony Cotton, Geyser’s attorney.
She and Anissa Weier — who pleaded not guilty last year under a different plea — are believed to have spent months planning the attack. Police have reported the girls spoke of becoming the fictional horror figure’s “proxies” by killing to demonstrate their loyalty to him. Their lawyers had originally argued the girls should be tried in juvenile court and claimed both teenagers suffered from mental defect. Ultimately, however, an appeal court upheld an earlier decision that they be tried as adults due to the premeditated nature of the crime. If convicted, they both could face decades in jail.
The next court hearing is scheduled for October with Weier’s attorney seeking a change to a different county according to Fox News:
“Frankly with the amount of publicity there’s been, I don’t know where we could go where someone hadn’t heard of it,” said Mara MacMahon, Weier’s attorney. “But there may be someplace where people have heard less intense coverage.”
Any update will be brought in October with a possible trial date in March or April 2017.