Woman Accused of Decapitating & Dismembering Lover After Choking Him to Death Pleads Not Guilty

Taylor D. Schabusiness, 24, was charged with 1st Degree Intentional Homicide and Mutilating a Corpse, as well as 3rd Degree Sexual Assault, for acts prosecutors said she did after the victim, Shad Thyrion, was dead. During a brief appearance in a Brown County courtroom this week, her lawyer entered a not guilty plea for all counts.

According to Law&Crime, her lawyer revealed in a previous hearing that Schabusiness had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been receiving mental health treatment since she was in the seventh grade.

A trial was set for October 24, 2022.

In the early hours of Wednesday February 23, police in Green Bay were contacted by a woman who said she'd found her 25-year-old son's severed head in a bucket, according to a criminal complaint obtained by WBAY.

When officers arrived, they found the bucket also contained a "male organ".

Searching the home they found an upper torso in a storage tote. Dried blood was also found on a nearby mattress.

The mother told police she was woken by the sound of a door slamming between 2 AM and 3 AM and assumed it was her son leaving; but when she got up to check a light that had been left on downstairs, she made the gruesome discovery.

Officers were told Schabusiness may have been the last person to see him alive. When they went to her home, they said her clothes were covered in dried blood.

Searching her minivan, they found a crock pot box containing "additional human body parts including legs," the complaint states.

Police asked Schabusiness what happened; she replied: "That is a good question."

According to the complaint, she told investigators she had spent the day with the victim smoking meth; After arriving at his mother's home, they started having sex, and incorporated chains.

Authorities say she told them she blacked out at some stage and just went "crazy" and started strangling him with the chain, him facedown and her on top of him; She insisted she didn't mean to kill him, but since she enjoyed choking him she continued to do it.

She said he began coughing up blood and noticed he was turning purple, but since she was "already this far" she kept going, according to the complaint. She reportedly asked detectives "if they knew what it was like to love something so much that you kill it."

"Schabusiness responded that the police were going to have fun trying to find all of the organs as she dismembered the body," the complaint states.

Authorities claim she initially told them all the body parts should be in the basement, but then added there should be a foot or a leg in the minivan; When they asked her what she did with the head, she said she put it in a bucket and threw a blanket over it.

"Schabusiness stated she used knives that she obtained from the kitchen of the residence and that a bread knife worked the best because of the serrated blade," the complaint continues. "Schabusiness stated the knives should be in a black bag along with the body parts in the basement," adding that she used whatever bags she could find to store the dismembered limbs.

"Schabusiness made the comment that at one point, she did get paranoid and lazy and that she thought it was the 'dope' that was making her paranoid," it says.

"Schabusiness stated the plan was for her to bring all of the body parts with her but she got lazy and only ended up putting the leg/foot in the van and she forgot the head."

She also is said to have told police she performed sexual acts with the dead body for "two or three hours" after the victim had died.

At a court hearing on Tuesday, the prosecutor described the scenario as "one of the most serious offenses we've had in this county in some time."

"I think the facts alleged are extremely concerning and disturbing and go to the violent nature and grave nature of the offense," Assistant District Attorney Caleb Saunders said.