A police body cam video played in court during the Wisconsin jury trial of Taylor Schabusiness shows the moment prosecutors say a police officer discovered a severed head in a bucket.
The video played as the officer took the stand against Schabusiness, the Green Bay woman who is accused of strangling, sexually assaulting and then mutilating the body of victim Shad Thyrion in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Schabusiness was found guilty by the jury, which also rejected her insanity plea. “Jury finds that at the time the crimes were committed the defendant DID NOT have a mental disease or mental defect. Court adjudges defendant guilty on all 3 counts,” online court records say. She will be sentenced on September 26, 2023.
Crime scene photos were also shown in court.
Taylor Denise Schabusiness, 25, of Green Bay, is accused of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and third-degree sexual assault, according to Wisconsin court records.
Schabusiness is married to husband Warren Schabow, who is standing by her, and has a young son.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Body Cam Video Shows Police Going Into the Basement of Shad Thyrion’s Mother’s Home
In the body cam video, officers knock on the door of a home in Wisconsin that belongs to the victim’s mother. The mother and a man speak to the officers and direct them down the stairs to the basement, where they find a bucket with the victim’s severed head inside, although the most graphic parts are not shown in the video.
The details in the criminal complaint are graphic and disturbing.
FacebookTaylor Schabusiness in a Facebook photo.
According to the criminal complaint, the officers went to the home in the early morning hours of February 23, 2022, “for a report of a severed head being found in a bucket in the basement.”
A former Lt with Green Bay pd looked at the extracted evidence of Taylor #Schabusiness phone, she noted interesting search history prior to alleged murder “things like a flaming Pentagram, Jeffrey Dahmer, things like that…the KKK”
The body cam video shows a room in the basement with a bed. The criminal complaint describes how the officer saw a plastic bucket in the basement with a towel over it, and he saw what appeared to be a human head inside it.
According to the criminal complaint, the human head was severed from the neck and was confirmed to be the victim. There was visual evidence of strangulation observed, according to the document. In the same bucket was a male organ along with body fluid and two knives, the complaint says.
The moment Taylor #Schabusiness was arrested for the murder and dismemberment of Shad #Thyrion was shown at trial. #GreenBay police video showed blood on her hands and bloody footprints around van where remains were in a crockpot box. @WFRVLocal5
Police found other body parts in the basement in plastic shopping bags, according to the court documents, including a torso in a storage tote.
A Second Police Body Cam Video Shows the Moment Officers Encountered Taylor Schabusiness
A second police body cam video, also played during the jury trial, shows the moment when officers tracked down and encountered Schabusiness at an apartment building in Green Bay.
The criminal complaint also describes this encounter. It says Schabusiness had what appeared to be blood on her sweatshirt, sweatpants and hands.
In the van she had been using, authorities found a crock pot box and located additional human body parts, including legs, the complaint says.
Police were led to Schabusiness by the victim’s mother, Tara Pakanich, who said she last saw Thyrion with her, the complaint says. Pakanich discovered her son’s head in the bucket, according to the document.
The complaint indicates that when told a head was found, Schabusiness said, “That is pretty f***** up,” and told police she was smoking methamphetamine before the murder and had “blacked out.”
She stated that strangulation was part of their sex act, the complaint says, adding that Schabusiness said, “D*** the head” and “I can’t believe I left the head, though.”
She said that police were going to have fun trying to find all of the organs because she dismembered the body, the complaint says, adding that she said she performed oral sex on the body.
She said it took the victim three to five minutes to die, adding, “Yeah, I liked it,” the complaint says.
Christopher Froelich, Schabusiness’s attorney, told the jury, according to Fox11Online: “I ask when you’re considering all of the evidence, don’t jump to a conclusion, don’t rush to judgment. Please keep an open mind and listen to all the facts. Listen to what every witness has to say, carefully, and weigh what they have to say.”
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