OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
1:10 PM – Friday, July 28, 2023
A Wisconsin jury found that a woman who is accused of brutally murdering and dismembering her boyfriend was not mentally insane at the time of the murder.
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25-year-old Taylor Schabusiness was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, third-degree sexual assault, and mutilating a corpse, for the 2022 killing of her then-boyfriend Shad Thyrion.
On Thursday, it took jurors less than an hour to come to the unanimous decision that Schabusiness was not mentally ill during the time of the murder and rejected her insanity plea.
Thyrion’s official cause of death was strangulation. Prosecutors say Schabusiness choked Thyrion to death in a moment of BDSM gone wrong, before she sexually abused and mutilated his body in February 2022.
Body camera footage released during the trial showed the moment officers discovered Thyrion’s severed head in a bucket in his mother’s basement.
Defense attorneys argued Schabusiness’ past struggles with mental health and drugs fueled her decision to kill during some sort of bipolar or manic episode. She allegedly told Green Bay police she and Thyrion smoked meth during the day of the murder, which was also found at the crime scene.
Prosecutor Caleb Saunders emphasized Schabusiness’ past issues are not the point of focus, but the relevant question is whether the defendant was going through a manic episode during the time of the offense.
“What part of all of the witnesses and evidence you’ve heard about the time and the night of February 21st that indicates she’s going through some manic episode? You’ve heard none of that,” Saunders said. “So this idea that this manic episode arose and dissipated in a flash, just happening to be around the five minutes where she’s strangling him and the day that she dismembered Shad, it’s utter farce.”
Schabusiness will appear back in court for sentencing in September, where she faces life in prison.
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