Stabbed Her Mother : Killer Wins Support in Plea for Release

Eight years after killing her mother and slashing her daughter’s throat with a razor, Arlyne Louise Genger--armed with a favorable court ruling and the support of doctors--is making a new attempt at gaining her release from a state mental institution.

Genger, 44, admitted fatally stabbing her mother and attacking her daughter on New Year’s Day, 1980, in the family’s North Hollywood apartment. But a judge found her not guilty by reason of insanity and committed her to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, where she has been confined since January, 1981.

The terms of Genger’s commitment allow her to be held for life, but she is entitled to a hearing every six months to try to persuade a judge that she is ready to be released. Testimony began Thursday and continued Friday in a hearing before Van Nuys Superior Court Judge C. Bernard Kaufman.

Mental health officials have recommended since 1985 that Genger, who had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, be allowed to enter a less-secure treatment program.

Kaufman, who is hearing the case for the first time, took it after a state appellate court ruled last year that another Superior Court judge, Darlene E. Schempp, acted on emotions when she denied Genger’s most recent attempt at release in April, 1986.

Schempp said at the time that she ruled that the case caused her to lose sleep at night and that she made her decision “by what I feel in my heart.”

Deputy Public Defender Dennis G. Cohen, who is representing Genger, and mental health officials are maintaining in the hearing that Genger is recovering from her mental illness. They say she no longer poses a threat to society or her family members, who have opposed her release from Patton.

“Her chances, in my view, are absolutely perfect,” Cohen said. “Everybody agrees, everybody is unanimous, the hospital, the entire staff. There is nobody who is saying no, except the prosecutor.”

Even the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. John K. Spillane, said: “I have to face reality. All our so-called experts are saying, ‘Let her out.’ . . . She’s going to get out some day, in some fashion.”

Cohen is asking Kaufman to allow Genger to live at either Gateways Satellite in Los Angeles or Hillview Residential Center in Pacoima, two mental health treatment facilities administered by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. Under the treatment plan, Genger could leave either facility to run errands, work or attend school as long as she notified officials of her itinerary and abided by it.

Plan Criticized

On Friday, while questioning Dr. Bryan J. Mershon, a psychologist who oversees the community-based centers for the county, Spillane criticized the proposed treatment plan.

“She can essentially walk out of that facility . . . unmonitored, unchaperoned and unsupervised,” said the prosecutor, who is arguing that Genger should be kept at Patton or at least put in an outpatient program with constant confinement or supervision.

Mershon, who favors Cohen’s outpatient plan, contended that Genger’s therapists would closely watch her and would almost immediately detect any sign of mental deterioration. He noted that doctors believe the 1980 killing was not a spur-of-the-moment act, but a result of growing mental illness during a year of Genger’s being “apparently homeless and living as a bag lady.”

In testimony Thursday, two staff members at Patton described Genger as “a model patient” who is “probably less likely than another person on the street to commit a dangerous act.”

None of Genger’s family members were in court this week. The family has in the past asked that Genger be kept in Patton for life.