As the year draws to a close, the news cycle—much like our world—is proving to be a highly bizarre and often deeply unsettling place. This week, three headlines—one devastating, one chaotic, and one tragic—demonstrated how real-world events are often far stranger than any folklore.
Here is a deeper, independent analysis of the unsettling stories covered recently by Wyrd Wessex.
1. The Slender Man Case: A Troubling Systemic Failure
The high-profile 2014 Slender Man stabbing case has returned to the headlines with a troubling update concerning Morgan Geyser, one of the individuals found Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Disease or Defect (NGRI).
Geyser, who was recently transitioned from institutional care to a Wisconsin group home, caused alarm by cutting their GPS monitoring tag and escaping. Detained 170 miles away near Chicago with a 43-year-old companion, the incident immediately prompted Wisconsin authorities to seek to revoke the conditional release.
The Failure of Monitoring
Analysis of the situation strongly suggests a failure in the transitional care system. Geyser, who has spent over half their life in custody and struggles with schizophrenia, was reportedly communicating with an older companion, raising concerns that a vulnerable adult was being misguided or exploited. The inability of the group home to adequately monitor the transition—resulting in the individual's unsupervised flight—highlights the profound, systemic challenges in providing effective, non-institutional care for complex mental health patients.
The legal reality remains that Geyser cannot be sent to prison under the NGRI finding, but now faces the possibility of being sent back to the mental health institution, further underscoring the legal complexity and the lack of suitable long-term solutions for these cases.
2. The Unsettling Link: From Game Show Rivalry to Indefinite Hospital Order
In an almost unbelievable parallel to the Slender Man update, a piece of UK news cemented the unsettling link between mental illness and bizarre true crime.
Former Countdown champion John Cohen was recently given an indefinite hospital order after stabbing a rival contestant, Thomas Carey, at an unofficial tournament in Blackpool. The shocking motive? An argument over an app used to play the classic gameshow.
Despite the surreal nature of the attack, the outcome was deadly serious: Cohen was found unfit to stand trial and is now receiving treatment for schizophrenia.
The two cases—one international, one domestic—both feature acts of extreme violence rooted in undiagnosed or complex mental illness. This disturbing regularity forces us to confront the severe consequences when these conditions are left untreated or when the support structures surrounding released patients are inadequate.
3. Divine Drunkenness? The Vicar’s Smash in Lincoln
For a moment of pure, unpredictable high strangeness, the focus shifts to Lincoln, where a tale of clerical chaos unfolded.
A vicar, Father Sian Hughes, was banned from driving for two years after being caught behind the wheel of the Bishop of Lincoln’s car while almost three times the legal alcohol limit. The subsequent crash saw the Bishop’s car collide with a vehicle belonging to the partner of actress Heather Bell (Clary Grundy in The Archers).
The sheer absurdity of the details—the Bishop’s car being taken, the excessive consumption of 'communion wine,' and the bizarre celebrity connection—gives the incident an unmistakable, if unfortunate, Father Ted quality, proving that sometimes, the weirdest news truly comes from the least expected places.
Conclusion
The news of the week presented a stark contrast between two very real systemic failures—the difficult, complex care of the mentally ill—and the almost theatrical failure of a vicar's sobriety. While the headlines range from the terrifying to the farcical, the one constant is the strange, compelling, and often critical insight into the world we inhabit.
Stay Wyrd.