MADISON — Residents of the neighborhood where Slender Man stabbing defendant Morgan Geyser escaped from a group home were stunned to learn the 23-year-old, who was charged with attempted homicide at age 12, was living nearby.
“I was shocked that she was placed there,” said Terri Bartlett, whose home is on the same block as YoYo Quality Care, where Geyser was placed mid-September.
Bartlett didn’t learn Geyser lived on the block, which borders southwest Madison and Fitchburg, until a former neighbor called her Monday, Nov. 24, after Geyser was taken into custody in Illinois. Like others on the block, Bartlett and her husband were watching the Green Bay Packers on Sunday afternoon when Geyser’s escape was reported.
Adam Bowen, a resident on the block of about 12 years, was also watching the game. He learned what was going on when he stepped outside to walk his dog and saw “a bunch of reporters.” When he saw the news, he realized he’d interacted with Geyser outside the home one day while he was walking his dog. She told him she liked his dog, he said.
Other neighbors reached by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said they learned of Geyser’s disappearance through news reports or family and friends.
“One of my daughters called us and told us about it,” said one man who’s lived in the area for about two years and declined to share his name. “They called us and said, close the doors.”
With neighboring backyards, Bartlett, who has lived there for 40 years, was aware of the group home and its function. Decades ago, she had worked in a group home for delinquent girls in Detroit. She said she hasn’t had any problems with YoYo Quality Care as a neighbor, and even once donated a mattress to the home.
She can usually hear the residents in the morning — talking, some crying and moaning — and she is sympathetic to the need for it.
“People have to live somewhere,” she said. “But knowing that there’s (an attempted) murder suspect who’s schizophrenic and whose moved into a group home makes me nervous. I never would have thought that she would be that unsupervised, knowing her record.”
No one answered when a Journal Sentinel reporter rang the doorbell at YoYo Quality Care on Kroncke Drive, where shades were drawn and a window on the door was papered over.
Geyser and co-defendant Anissa Weier were charged with the attempted homicide of their friend Payton Leutner, whom Geyser stabbed 19 times near Davids Park in Waukesha in May 2014. All three girls were 12 years old at the time.
Geyser and Weier said they believed they were doing the bidding of the fictional online character Slender Man. They were found not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease in 2017 and sentenced to mental confinement, Weier for 25 years, and Geyser for 40 years.
After seven years of confinement, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren allowed for Geyser’s conditional release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute — setting aside an 11th-hour petition by state officials who had asked he revoke her conditional release.. The plan for her release was approved by Waukesha County Circuit Judge Scott Wagner.
The state Department of Health Services oversees the conditional release program for people with mental illness who have committed a crime.
A group home in Sun Prairie, a suburb of Madison, in August withdrew its offer to accept Geyser as a resident. Two other group homes, one in Manitowoc and the other in the Milwaukee area, also fell through.
Until her escape, her ultimate placement location was not publicly known as it was sealed by the court.
Multiple residents of the Meadowood neighborhood, where the group home is located, said they think the home or authorities should have been required to notify them that someone with such a violent offense on their record would be moving into the community.
“I wish there was more transparency about what kind of group home that is. I really don’t know,” Bartlett said. “Who’s allowed to live there?”
Another resident on the block, who declined to share his name, said he didn’t know about the group home until he saw the Geyser news.
“That’s how I found out,” he said. “What? There’s this group home in my backyard? I thought this was a residential area.”
Bowen said he knew about the group home, but “to our understanding, it was a lot of people with maybe developmental disabilities who were living there, and not violent people.”
“That kind of changes it,” he said.
Bowen said he understands it’s a delicate situation, but feels neighbors should have been made aware in this case.
Neighbors who spoke with the Journal Sentinel said the situation doesn’t change their feelings about the neighborhood.
“It really doesn’t,” Bartlett said. “As long as nothing happened. Now, if she split and stole my car or tried to get into my house, that would be different.”
Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Neighbors ‘shocked’ Slender Man stabbing defendant lived in group home
Reporting by Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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