Joshua Geier: Another 12-year-old Murderer

'This was murder,' try boy as adult, DA says
He is accused of killing mom in Lower Saucon. New details emerge.

By Tyra Braden
Of The Morning Call













Twelve-year-old Joshua Geier committed ''an intentional act of murder'' when he shot his mother ?- after locking his younger sisters in the shed from which he had retrieved and loaded the rifle ?- and should be prosecuted and punished as an adult, Northampton County's district attorney said Tuesday.

In addition, District Attorney John M. Morganelli said, psychological and psychiatric evaluations conclude that Geier, of Lower Saucon Township, has no identifiable mental-health issues but does have ''gun-related issues'' that would require counseling.







''This was not an accident,'' Morganelli said. ''This was murder.''

President Judge Robert A. Freedberg will rule later on whether the homicide case against Geier, who is now 13, will be transferred to juvenile court.

Morganelli and Geier's attorney, Anthony Martino of Bangor, argued before Freedberg at a hearing Tuesday. Geier, handcuffed and shackled, sat quietly beside Martino. The boy was noticeably thinner than he was at his preliminary hearing in the fall. He remains without bail in the county's Juvenile Detention Center in Easton.

Diane Geier, 41, died instantly when, police said, her son leveled a rifle at her face and fired as she lay on the couch talking to a friend on the phone. The shooting occurred Oct. 7 at the Geier home at 3812 Wilhelm Road.

Martino argued the matter should be transferred to juvenile court because a defense and a prosecution psychologist and a prosecution psychiatrist concluded that Geier ''would be amenable'' to supervision, treatment and rehabilitation offered through the juvenile justice system. If found guilty as a juvenile, Geier could not be held or treated past his 21st birthday.

Morganelli said that's not enough time.

Amenability to treatment isn't the only factor that needs to be considered, he told Freedberg. Other issues are the circumstances of the crime, Geier's level of criminal sophistication, the impact of the crime on the Geier family and the community, and Geier's culpability.

Martino, Morganelli said, failed to prove that transferring the case to juvenile court would be ''in the public's best interest,'' the legal standard to make such a move.

In fact, Morganelli said, the investigation revealed ''some disturbing facts'' about Geier. When Geier was 10, Morganelli said, he became upset because his mother denied permission for a fishing trip, so he took the family van, crashed it in Bucks County and told police he had been kidnapped.

After the hearing, Morganelli filed a document that gives more detail about information he presented at the hearing. According to the document, Geier in June or July ''shot an 8-year-old girl in the neighborhood in the stomach with a BB gun and was seen shooting at the girl's family dog, also with a BB gun.''

''On three-four occasions in the past, pointed a gun at another child and threatened to shoot or kill him,'' the document says. ''Also, during the week of June 23-27, 2002, Geier put a gun to the head of'' an 11-year-old boy at summer Bible school and threatened to kill him. ''The gun was confiscated, but the matter was never brought to the attention of authorities,'' the document says.

Morganelli told Freedberg, ''None of this stuff was ever turned over to police.''

Equally disturbing, Morganelli said, is that the experts have not explained what caused Geier to kill his mother. Morganelli said the psychiatrist reported that ''Joshua may have underreported his emotions doesn't express his anger well.'' According to the report, Morganelli said, Geier's answers during the evaluation were ''brief, mechanical and lacked credibility.''

The boy didn't mention ''warmth, affection, fun, etc.,'' when speaking of his parents, Morganelli said.

The crime itself, Morganelli said, shows that Geier committed murder. ''This was not an accident,'' he said, even though Geier told police he hadn't acted intentionally. Morganelli said the rifle was in a locked cabinet in a shed. He said Geier's father had one key, and his mother had the other. Geier, he said, found his mother's key, opened the cabinet, selected the .22-caliber rifle and loaded it.

He then called his sisters, who were 10 and 9 at the time, to the shed and locked them inside. After shooting his mother, Geier walked outside, ejected the spent cartridge, unlocked the shed and told his sisters their mother was dead, Morganelli said. The girls summoned help from a neighbor. The neighbor, he said, was a nurse and reported that, although the girls were visibly shaken, Geier showed no emotion.

When police arrived, Morganelli said, Geier denied knowledge of what had happened, then later said he had found the gun cabinet unlocked and took what he believed was an unloaded rifle to show his mother. Nonetheless, Morganelli said, Geier's fingerprints were found on the box of ammunition the boy used to load the rifle. In addition, he said, Geier had recently taken a gun-safety course and scored 92 percent on a test. These entries were in a notebook in his handwriting: ''Always assume a gun is loaded'' and ''Never point a gun at anyone.''

The boy also told police that when he walked into the house, he spoke to his mother, who told him to wait a moment because she was on the phone, Morganelli said. However, the woman with whom Diane Geier was speaking told police that she heard no such conversation and that Diane Geier stopped talking in mid-sentence.

Morganelli said that, although Geier is young, adult court has suitable placement for him.

Morganelli said the state prison at Pine Grove, Indiana County, is geared toward young offenders, most of whom are 15 to 20 years old. The prison, he said, ''offers education and therapy, but it also offers security to the public and gives the court more jurisdiction.''

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Copyright © 2003, The Morning Call

He sounds like he has an anti-social personality disorder. He needs to be tried as an adult. People who have committed the sorts of things that have been described need to be kept away from society so that he does not do any more harm.

What the hell is the point of keeping guns locked away when the keys are available to a 12 year old kid?

Man, if the stuff in that article is all true, the boy does need to be kept from mingling with society. Maybe forever.

I feel that after the very first public mishandling of guns, that the guns should have been taken out of the house. This is a case in which the parents must carry a great deal of responsibility.

Also, had I been the mother of the little girl shot with a BB gun, I'd have Done Something Official--and sending the shooter to gun safety lessons wouldn't have been enough.

The mind boggles.

Well, in Germany it would be those, who gave access to weapons, who get sentenced.

Which is very right, I think.

The child couldn't be sentenced at all (you must be 14 here to appeal to junevile criminal law), but send to an educational home/institution.

I can only relate this to a murder that occurred in Michigan where we lived. This kid, (about 12) killed both parents and his sister. He said his parents were on his back, bugging him constantly. He was NOT tried as an adult and went free at 18.

This person, now a man, will never be "right." Odd, freakish type people are attracted to him, live with him. Because he has learned NOTHING about life. From what I recall, his parents raised him according to the fundamentalist religion they belonged. In other words, it was to impress the church hierarchy. I think he knew that he didn't really matter to them.

I think our media don't do favors to anybody when they don't completely and totally examine the family from which these kids came, and let the public know. We have to know every single detail so this murdering by children will stop. Notice that information from the families of the kids who shot up the school in Columbine CO has been kept secret. The parents MUST be at fault in some way and we all need to know how NOT to raise kids.

The problem with locking up Joshua's father is that his sisters would then be left parentless.

I know the FBI interviews serial killers over and over and over looking for clues to the causes of murderous behavior. I think it would be an excellent idea to do the same with parents of homicidal children, but I believe the results should be publicized as general statements rather than publically profiling a specific family, particularly when there are other children in the family.

I disagree. Knowing 'every single detail' is not an answer. Who determines what is 'good' and 'bad' parenting? And letting people know after the fact makes it a moot point. Just because I may not see Scientologists as 'good' parents, does the state have the right to take the children away? How about NRA supporters? How about alcoholics? Who decides? There are millions of children in this country....and no place else for them to go.

I know hundreds of kids in jail and on probation. Some of them have lousy parents that are held accountable (criminal charges, rehab, lose of parental rights forever), some have great parents and the child really is just a bad apple...you have no idea how difficult it is to get courts to do something about a juvenile offender at the beginning of a problem or how overloaded the system is. Parental responsibility is a must - but I think that the media is already way too involved in 'every single detail' of people's lives. That's the court's job, not the newspaper's job.

The only real answer is to pay attention to your local court systems. Find out how these cases are handled, elect governors that will appoint judges that you like. Pay attention to the funding that police, social services, and juvenile centers get. All those people that are supposed to be doing something need to come from somewhere.

Sure, Sugar, I know you're right. Nothing is so cut and dried that anybody would know much after speaking with parents, the very people probably in the dark. I just would never agree that "bad apples" are born. I would say, however, that no matter our parents or upbringing we are still responsible for our actions.

My grandparents re very good friends of the Geier family. When I lived with my grandparents for a year, I also got to know the Geiers, which includes Josh and Diane. I babysat the children on a few occasions. Josh to me seemed like a normal 11 year old, I mean he had his moods, but so does everyone. I was there when the stuff happened with ihm stealing his moms van and totalling it. It got me to take a closer look at all of them to try to figure out why a child of his age would do that. I loved Diane, she was a very sweet and giving woman. She helped my grandmother out a lot. I am not saying that she was perfect though. She could have done a few things different when it came to raising her kids, but couldn't we all have? The difference we is we have the chance to look back on our mistakes, and she doesn't. But at the same time, I dont know what she could have done different in order to make Josh believe how much she really loved him. He was a very difficult child sometimes.
I personally dont know whether he should have been tried as an adult or juvenile, but I do know that his "punishment" should have been harsher. I honestly dont think that any child who could shoot their mother point blank in the face really has much of a chance to be fully rehabilitated. If he can do that to someone who loved him and did everything she could for him, then what can he do to the random Joe Schmoe on the street who looks at him wrong and pisses him off one day?

Nice objective post, babygrl. Welcome to A2K.

Thanks Sugar

Welcome, Babygrl.

Joshua was sentenced this month. I tried to find the story in the Allentown Morning Call but the search engine there is being most contrary.

As I remember, he's going to be treated as a juvenile offender with the potential for release from the system at 21.

I don't know Joshua, but I've dealt with a number of teenaged boys. My educated guess--and it is only a guess--is that Joshua didn't mean to kill his mother forever. He meant to shoot her with the shotgun so that she'd pay attention right away, right at that moment--off the phone and focus on Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh....

Obviously, Joshua is a very troubled kid. Playing "What If" is a fruitless game, but his life might have been very different had his parents sought professional intervention when he first began acting out.

I ache for his father--and for his motherless sisters.

He was handled as a juvenile and found to have commited manslaughter in the juvenile hearings. He was sentenced on July 18th to 6 months to 4 years in a Juvenile Treatment Center according to WAEB news.

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/6332575.htm

"Posted on Fri, Jul. 18, 2003

News in brief from eastern Pennsylvania
Associated Press

EASTON, Pa. - A boy who fatally shot his mother will spend six months to four years in a juvenile treatment center, a judge decided.

Joshua Geier, now 13, shot Diane Geier, 41, at their home on Oct. 7. District Attorney John Morganelli tried to prove that Geier had committed murder, but Judge James C. Hogan concluded that the boy's actions were involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree misdemeanor.

Geier is to get an evaluation after six months of treatment, and then the court will have 90 days to rule on whether he may be released, Hogan ruled Thursday. Defense lawyer Anthony Martino said the evaluations will continue every six months until the court decides to release him or the four years are up."

Fishin'--

Many thanks. I didn't realize you were within spitting distance of the Lehigh Valley.

Speculating on what he might have been thinking is all well and good, but access to guns is the real issue. It was littlek, I believe, who questioned the point of having the guns locked if the key was so easy for this kid to locate. Excellent question!

Until this society does something about access to guns, these sorts of tragedies will keep on happening. If it's not a sharp-shooter adolescent, it's a 5-year-old shooting his little sister with dad's revolver.

I'm not Noddy! I'm in greater Boston but I did a Google search and found those this morning after reading the comments here.

fishin'--

You're a marvel--a very useful marvel. Thank you.

D'artagnan--

One of the major problems with gun safety is that doting parents are prone to feel, "My child would Never.....and of course, boys will be boys.

I'm sure that girls will be girls, also, but guns don't seem to appeal to girls the way they do to boys.

The incidence of gun ownership during colonial times has been wildly exaggerated, but I'll accept that a great many isolated log cabins had a gun hung conveniently by the door.

I bet that any boy who fooled with Pa's gun was immediately and forcefully chastized.

Still....most of the body count from the ill-fated Donnor Party was created by a lethal combination of whiskey, guns and testosterone--not starvation.