WAUKESHA, Wis. » After an appellate court declined to move their cases to juvenile court, two Waukesha girls charged in the 2014 Slender Man stabbing were back in court today, where one girl entered a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease, and lawyers for the second would not rule it out for their client.

Attorneys for both girls also announced they would seek a change of venue for what are likely to be separate trials that haven’t been scheduled by wouldn’t be held until March or April.

Morgan Geyser, now 14, was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia in 2014, during an examination of her competency to proceed in the case. She and Anissa Weier, also 14, are charged as adults with attempted first-degree intentional homicide for the May 31, 2014, attack on a sixth-grade classmate. Peyton Leutner was stabbed 19 times and left for dead in a Waukesha park but managed to crawl near a path, where she was found by a passing bicyclist.

Both defendants later told police they were trying to either impress or avoid the wrath of Slender Man, a fictional internet bogeyman the girls said they believed would harm them or their families if they didn’t kill their friend.

Competency reviews, extended preliminary hearings and challenges to adult court jurisdiction, including the recent appeal, have delayed the case to the point where both girls now look like young teens, not the 12-year-old girls the world first saw in 2014. They would be starting high school this fall.

As adults, they face up to 45 years in prison if convicted. As adjudicated juvenile delinquents, they could be incarcerated at the Copper Lake School for Girls, part of the state’s troubled juvenile prison complex for up to three years, then moved to intensive community supervision until they turned 18.

Each has been held at a West Bend juvenile jail since their arrests May 31, 2014, except for stints at a state mental facility for competency examinations and restoration, and, in the case of Geyser, treatment for early onset schizophrenia, under a civil commitment order.

Today, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren declined to appoint the preferred psychologist of Gesyer’s attorney to perform the evaluation for the insanity plea. Bohren agreed with prosecutors that because Deborah Collins had been retained by the defense earlier, it could present an appearance of a conflict of interest. Bohren instead appointed Kent Berney, a Madison psychologist who has had no involvement in the case so far, and ordered that his report on whether Geyser’s condition could support the not guilty by reason of mental disease finding be returned in 45 days.

At the urging of Geyser’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, Bohren did appoint a second doctor, Brooke Lundbohm, to assist in the report. Cotton said he thought it was important that an evaluator have some familiarity with Geyser’s condition closer in time to the incident, and not just how she appears now after months of treatment and medication at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Lundbohm had seen Geyser previously, but not as extensively as Collins.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Osborne asked Bohren to inquire whether Weier would also be entering an insanity plea. Her attorney, Maura McMahon, said she no such plans at the moment, but would not rule it out.

The next hearing the case was set for Oct. 13, when Bohren will consider various motions, and announce the findings of Geyser’s NGI evaluation.

Parents of all three girls involved, the victim and the defendants, were in court for today’s hearing.

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