America Thayer (Facebook), Alexis Saborit (Scott County Jail)
When a Minnesota judge in May convicted Alexis Saborit, 44, of murdering his girlfriend, America Mafalda Thayer, 55, the determination was made that Saborit really did crush Thayer’s skull with a dumbbell and cut off her head with a machete on July 28, 2021, while on the way to a hearing for his criminal arson case.
His mental culpability, however, had remained up in the air — until Monday.
Judge Caroline H. Lennon ruled that Saborit was not guilty of the killing by reason of mental illness. Two doctors agreed that though he understood the nature and legal ramifications of the killing, he failed to appreciate the “moral wrongfulness” of the completely unjustified attack.
He had initially claimed that he believed that Thayer planned to hurt or kill him that day.
Monday’s ruling was a bitter conclusion for Thayer’s family.
“It’s tough to understand how someone can commit a cold-blooded murder, plan to do it, tell everyone they’re going to do it, have a motive to do it, then somehow be considered insane,” her son, Charles Thayer, said, according to local NBC affiliate KARE. “The hardest thing for us is the ‘not guilty’ — the words being said that he’s ‘not guilty.””
Saborit’s criminal history dates back to a 2009 conviction for domestic abuse and also violating a prosecutive order in 2013. There was a 2011 conviction for false imprisonment with an armed weapon and two counts of domestic battery, the ruling stated.
“Medical records reflect a report of bizarre delusions during an emergency department visit to St. Francis Hospital in Shakopee as early as March of 2013,” the order stated.
Regarding his relationship with Thayer, Saborit was convicted for a 2017 case of domestic abuse. They reunited.
“This is your typical, tell-tale abusive man, controlling man relationship for many, many years and I can’t even tell you how many times the cops were called for beating the crap out of her and leaving her all bloody,” Charles Thayer reportedly said.
After the murder — and after getting treatment — Sabori told a doctor that Thayer died in a grisly accident in which he tried to open a vehicle’s stuck air conditioner vent by using a machete. It got stuck. He and Thayer worked together to remove it. It came loose under their combined efforts, but it slashed her neck, decapitating her, he maintained.
When asked what he thought when he realized the machete hurt Thayer, he said, “I wanted to kill myself that day from the thought of how it happened. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never had the courage to hurt someone.”
But that was long after his initial interviews with police on the day of the gruesome slaying.
In speaking to cops after the arrest, Saborit appeared emotional or tearful, and although he generally controlled his behavior, “his thought processes were often quite circumstantial and tangential,” the ruling stated.
Saborit claimed to think Thayer had hurt him and tried to kill him before. He maintained Thayer intended on seriously hurting or outright killing him on the afternoon of July 28, 2021.
Symptoms of psychosis and delusional beliefs continued for weeks after the arrest, the ruling stated. Symptoms improved after taking antipsychotic medication.
The state argued there was substantial evidence of him faking his mental illness.
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One of the doctors found, however, little indication that Saborit was “sophisticated” enough to fake symptoms of mental illness for an extended period of time. Records indicated severe psychosis and mania since at least 2018.
Saborit landed in a coma in 2017, leaving him with traumatic brain damage. After that, he began to experience auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions, the ruling stated.
In his 2013 St. Francis stay and another hospital stay in May 2020 at University Hospital, Saborit claimed he had a GPS tracking device or some chip or camera following a car accident.
“He feels like everyone can hear what he is thinking,” the judge wrote.
Saborit claimed to have been raped, and that medical staff took out his eyes and installed microchips in his brain.
He also claimed to have racing thoughts and hearing voices, leading to himself to barricade himself in his burning apartment. This ended in him jumping from a second-story window.
In a text to someone else in the days before her death, Thayer noted Saborit talking to the voices in his ears. Others who knew Saborit discussed “heightened symptoms” in the days and hours leading to the crime.
Judge Lennon ruled that prosecutors must submit a civil commitment petition. Saborit will remain at the Scott County Jail until the Commission of Human Services takes custody of him.
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