Wisconsin Woman Found Guilty in Meth-Fueled Sex Slaying

A Wisconsin woman on Wednesday was found guilty of murdering and decapitating her lover in a meth-fueled rendezvous last February.

Taylor Schabusiness, 25, was convicted of all charges against her, including first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and third-degree sexual assault in connection with the February 2022 murder of her lover, Shad Thyrion. The verdict came after Brown County Circuit Court jurors deliberated for just 45 minutes.

Throughout the three-day trial, jurors heard harrowing allegations against Schabusiness, who they say fatally strangled Thyrion on Feb. 22, 2022, in the basement of his mother’s Green Bay home. Prosecutors argued that after smoking methamphetamine and engaging in a sexual encounter, Schabusiness fatally strangled Thyrion before mutilating the 24-year-old’s body for hours.

Schabusiness admitted to the police that she dismembered and sexually abused Thyrion before she got “paranoid and lazy” and put his severed head and male genitalia in a five-gallon bucket with a beach towel before leaving. Thyrion’s mother later found the severed head and called the authorities.

Thyrion’s mother, Tara Pakanich, testified earlier this week that she woke up in the middle of the night and went to the basement to see if her son was home. Instead, she said, discovered a five-gallon bucket with a beach towel on top with her son's head and genitalia inside.

“She found the severed head of her son in the basement,” Pakanich’s boyfriend, Steve Hendricks, told a 911 dispatcher in a call played in court. “There’s something in the god damn bucket.”

On Wednesday, jurors also heard about an obsession Schabusiness had with Jeffrey Dahmer—and even saw a bizarre smiling selfie that she took with a photo of the notorious serial killer.

The photo was among several pieces of evidence that were found on Taylor Schabusiness’s phone after the February 2022 murder of her lover, Shad Thyrion. Former Green Bay Police lieutenant Jena Luberda described to jurors that while looking through the 25-year-old’s electronics, she found that Schabusiness had several Dahmer-related photos saved on her phone, as well as about 24 online searches about the murderer known for killing and dismembering 17 men between 1978 and 1991.

The former detective also described the photos that were on Schabusiness’s Google Drive. One Feb. 12, 2022, photo shown to the jurors depicts Schabusiness smiling next to a cell phone displaying a photo of Dahmer.

“Things like Jeffrey Dahmer, Jeff Boyardee, Jeffrey Dahmer’s butt, Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy,” Luberda said about Schabusiness’s search history.

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