GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN: Taylor Denise Schabusiness, a Wisconsin woman who was convicted of murdering and dismembering her ex-boyfriend was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Tuesday, September 26.
Schabusiness who appeared in court wearing a spit mask had strangled, decapitated, and dismembered Shad Thyrion in the basement of his mother's home.
According to prosecutors, the convicted killer left parts of Thyrions' body throughout the house in Green Bay and in a vehicle, reported Law and Crime.
What is a spit mask?
A spit mask, also referred to as a spit hood is used as a toolkit for law enforcement and correctional officers to deal with potentially aggressive detainees.
The hood is especially used when the detainee has a history of spitting or biting behavior posing a threat against anyone present around.
Given Schabusiness' history of misbehavior in the court, she was seen wearing the mask.
Soon after a jury agreed to move the original date of her trial from March 6 to May 15 during a competency hearing earlier this year, she physically attacked her lawyer in the courtroom.
What are the charges against Taylor Schabusiness?
The 24-year-old woman was sentenced by a Brown County judge for the February 2022 murder of her 24-year-old former boyfriend.
In July, a jury convicted Schabusiness of third-degree sexual assault, mutilating a corpse, and first-degree intentional homicide.
She then pleaded not guilty to the charges because of mental disease or defect. However, the jury found that Schabusiness was not mentally ill when she murdered Thyrion.
On February 23, 2022, she was taken into custody after Thyrion's mother contacted police to respond to her Green Bay house after finding her son's head in a bucket placed in the basement.
Taylor Schabusiness spoke just two words before she was sentenced to life in prison
Before the sentence was announced on Tuesday, Brown County Circuit Judge Thomas Walsh stated that "the offense in this case can’t be overstated."
"You seem to run out of superlatives. Where the victim’s remains are cut up? These actions are foreign. They shock the community; there aren’t words for it," Walsh added.
Her defense lawyer, Christopher Froelich spoke at the court on Schabusiness' behalf before the sentencing.
However, when the judge asked her if there was anything she would like to tell the court, Schabusiness just said, "No, there isn’t."
At the court, Froelich said of Schabusiness that "she’s not a monster," and added that she still has time for rehabilitation as she is aged 24.
