Wisconsin woman was not mentally ill when she murdered, dismembered ex-boyfriend, jury says

Taylor Schabusiness was not mentally ill when she murdered her ex-boyfriend, sexually abused his corpse and then chopped up his body and scattered his remains, jurors concluded.

A panel of eight women and four men needed just less than an hour of deliberation before they rejected 25-year-old Schabusiness’ insanity plea Thursday evening.

The same Brown County, Wisconsin, jury earlier this week found Schabusiness guilty of homicide, third-degree sexual abuse and mutilating a corpse in the killing of Shad Thyrion. His mother discovered some of his body parts in the basement of their Green Bay home the night of February 23, 2022. Responding officers found both a head and a “male organ” hidden in a bucket that was covered up with a towel, as well as a torso stashed into a storage tote, police said. Other remains were left inside a van, including a pair of legs.

Schabusiness was arrested in blood-covered clothes the same night, and she later told investigators she did not know why she killed Thyrion. She added that she started to choke him with a dog collar during a meth-fueled romp and that she didn’t want to stop.

Diane Lytton, an independent psychologist who testified on behalf of the defense, told the court Schabusiness appeared to suffer from a range of mental issues when she was evaluated at the Brown County Jail in 2022 and 2023. During one evaluation, she picked up and threw a plastic chair, the psychologist recalled, labeling her a “psychotic person.”

It was not enough to sway the jurors though, who unanimously concluded Schabusiness was mentally competent when she carried out the gruesome killing. If they had found Schabusiness was mentally ill, she would be sent to a mental institution instead of prison.

Her sentencing hearing has been set for September.