A married woman accused of decapitating her lover after choking him during sex attacked her lawyer in court on Tuesday, Feb. 14.
Taylor Schabusiness, 25, jumped her attorney, Quinn Jolly, at around 8.48am in a Greenbay, Wisconsin courtroom.
The altercation came after a witness failed to show up to testify on Schabusiness’ mental state during a proceeding to determine whether Schabusiness is fit to stand trial.
Jolly had been expected to introduce testimony from an expert witness in court on Tuesday, but he instead told Judge Thomas Walsh that the witness had not yet completed his report.
The lawyer asked for two more weeks for that testimony to take place.
Walsh reluctantly agreed to postpone the trial, originally set for March 6, and had suggested a May 15 trial instead.
That is when Schabusiness was caught on camera attacking Jolly.
Video from the Greenbay courtroom showed Schabusiness launching out of her seat trying to grab at Jolly’s arm. She then appeared to strike him in the head.
A Brown County sheriff’s officer quickly sprang into action and tackled Schabusiness to the ground, struggling to keep her down as she tried to squirm out of his grasp.
?Stop,? the officer kept telling Schabusiness as she tried to kick herself free, and wrapped her foot around a cord connected to his utility belt.
Two other sheriff’s deputies could be seen arriving to tackle the 25-year-old, trying to speak to her calmly.
A woman supporting Schabusiness also tried to calm the defendant down, according to the Gazette.
Together, they were able to get Schabusiness to calm down and sit her up against a door before leading her out.
Schabusiness is charged with first degree homicide, mutilating a corpse and third-degree sexual assault.
The victim’s own mother discovered her son’s severed head in a bucket, covered with a towel, in her home.
According to police Schabusiness admitted to giving oral sex and using a sex toy on her victim after he was dead. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness or defect.
The question of Schabusiness’ fitness to stand trial has been a central issue of her court proceedings since she was arrested last year.
An expert hired by the court had testified that she was capable of assisting in her own defense, but an expert hired by the defense raised doubt.
If found competent, the trial will proceed as scheduled. But if she is found not competent to stand trial, the case will be put on hold as she receives additional psychiatric treatment.
Schabusiness was arrested in Feb. 2022, after Shad Rock Thyrion’s mother found his severed head in a bucket in her basement.
Shad Rock Thrion
Police records show Tara Pakanich, 47, called authorities to her home in Green Bay’s west side shortly after 3am on February 23.
She said she was woken by the storm door slamming and the sound of a vehicle driving away. She then noticed that the basement light was on and went to see if her son was there, assuming that it was Schabusiness, with whom Thyrion had spent the day, that she had heard leaving.
According to the criminal complaint, which refers to her only by her initials, ‘TP went into the basement and did not see anyone, so she started to walk back up the stairs, and that was when she noticed a bucket next to the bottom of the stairs.
Tara Pakanich stated she removed a blanket that was over the bucket, and she discovered the head of her son.
Thyrion’s mother told police that Schabusiness had picked her son up around 9.30pm on February 21, which was when she last saw him alive.
Pakanich and her boyfriend were out for much of the following day, and she did not hear her son and Schabusiness return, but she believed they had spent the day in the basement as she heard Schabusiness’ voice.
Arriving on the scene, Green Bay Police Officer Alex Wanish reported how he had ?observed the plastic bucket on the floor…[with] a shower/beach towel over the bucket.?
The officer ?lifted the towel and observed a human head inside the bucket.?
He also noted ?what appeared to be dried blood on a nearby mattress.?
It didn’t take long for police to catch up to Schabusiness. They found her with blood still on her sweatshirt and sweatpants, scratches on her arms, a cut on her left thumb and what appeared to be blood on her hands.
Schabusiness, who has a husband, Warren, and had recently become a mother to a son, Mateo, admitted that she knew Thyrion. The pair were also Facebook friends.
Schabusiness and her husband
She claimed that they had been doing drugs, including smoking methamphetamine, earlier in the day. She said she had also shot herself and Thyrion up with Trazadone, a powerful sedative.
Police recovered evidence of drug-taking, including a glass pipe and bag containing light colored powder, from the scene.
When told by detectives that police had found Thyrion’s head in a bucket Schabusiness responded, ?that is pretty f***d up.? And when asked what had happened in the basement she replied, ?that is a good question? and initially claimed to have blacked out.
She allegedly went on to tell police that she and Thyrion had been going to have sex and that he had produced two metal chains, one for him and one for her. She said he put his chain around his own neck as strangulation was something they had used during intercourse before.
According to the complaint Schabusiness then suddenly blurted out, ?Damn the head. I can’t believe I left the head though? before telling officers they were ?going to have fun trying to find all of the organs as she had dismembered the body.?
She told them that most of the body parts were in the basement but that ?there should be a foot or a leg? in her minivan.
Remaining calm, Schabusiness allegedly told detectives that after Thyrion put the chain around his neck, she just went ?crazy? strangling him.
She said that she could feel his heart beating, ?so she kept pulling and choking him harder,? claiming that he would not die as he just kept ?rebuilding into muscle.?
The woman then told how she sat on top of him, choking him while he lay face down on the bed and how she watched as he coughed up blood and ?waited for him to die.?
At some point, she admitted, she knew that he was dead as his face was purple and blood was coming from his mouth. Still, she told detectives, that she was ?already this far? so she did not stop.
At one point, the criminal complaint says, Schabusiness recalled in a lower tone of voice, ?Ya, I liked it? when referring to choking her victim.
Asked what she did once she realized he was dead, Schabusiness stated that she had ?played? with Thyrion’s body.
The complaint reads, ?Schabusiness stated she sucked the Victim’s penis, that she had a dildo that she put in the Victim’s mouth and then in the Victim’s a**.?
She said that Thyrion had fought back as she strangled him and went on to tell detectives that she had decapitated and dismembered him with knives taken from Thyrion’s mother’s kitchen.
She told them they would find the knives she had used in the same black bags as she had put the body parts into. She said she had favored a bread knife because the serrated edge made it more effective for the grizzly task.
Thyrion’s penis was found in the same bucket as his head while other body parts were found in a variety of bags in the basement including plastic shopping bags. His upper torso was found in a storage tote along with a carving knife and several internal organs.
His legs and other body parts were found in a crockpot box on top of a laundry basket of clothes in the rear passenger seat of her minivan.
Schabusiness told detectives that she had planned to take all the body parts with her when she left in her minivan but that she had ?got lazy? and was ill-prepared because the murder was random and not planned.
Asked if she thought that what she had done was the right thing to do Schabusiness commented that she ?did it anyway.?
Schabusiness remains in custody as hearings into her ability to stand trial continue.
She faces life in prison if convicted.
