A jury in Wisconsin was shown body-worn camera footage of when police found a dead man’s head in a bucket as the murder and necrophilia trial of Taylor Denise Schabusiness began on Monday.
Shad Thyrion, 25, was killed and dismembered in his mother’s basement in February 2022. The state alleges the 25-year-old defendant took advantage of him during rough sex and choked him to death with a chain before later having sex with his corpse, otherwise violating the dead man’s body, and then cutting it into several pieces.
At least two of Thyrion’s body parts – his head and what police have euphemistically described as a “male organ” – were left for his mother, Tara Pakanich, and her boyfriend, Steve Hendricks, to find.
In a 911 call, Hendricks tells a dispatcher that his girlfriend “swears that she found the severed head of her son in the basement.”
In the body-worn camera footage shown in court, Pakanich, in very hushed tones, mentions something about a “severed head” to a responding member of the Green Bay Police Department.
“Did you both see this?” the officer asks the couple.
“I opened the towel,” Hendricks replied. “I picked up the towel and dropped it because I don’t know what the f––– it is, man. I have bad vision and she’s like: ‘Is that what I think it is?’ I don’t f––––– know.”
One of the officers stays with the couple while the other makes his way down the stairs into the basement on Stony Brook Lane.
After looking inside the bucket, the officer appears to call his partner over to look. The second officer responds with shock and disgust.
The first officer continues to look around the basement for several minutes – calling for multiple units of backup at least twice.
“If we could get more units sooner rather than later that would be appreciated,” the officer wearing the body camera says in the video played in court. “We’ve got quite a bit of blood down here.”
The criminal complaint against Schabusiness filed in Brown County goes into detail about what responding officers found that night.
Thyrion’s head had been severed from the neck and there was visual evidence of strangulation. Inside the bucket — besides the head — was the “male organ,” along with body fluid and two knives.
Other body parts were found in the basement in plastic shopping bags. Knives, including a carving knife and a bread knife, were found at the scene of the crime, police wrote. The victim’s upper torso was found in a storage tote, along with “several internal organs.”
After being arrested, the defendant allegedly admitted to blacking out while smoking methamphetamine – and later allegedly admitted to the opportunistic killing of Thyrion during typically rough sex the two lifelong friends frequently engaged in together.
Schabusiness said she and Thyrion would often use chains and strangulation techniques when they had sex. The chains were linked, silver, and looked like dog choke collars. She said this latest time they had sex, she “just went crazy, referring to strangling the victim.”
After what the defendant explained as a period of choking that lasted some three to five minutes, Thyrion eventually died and she said she played with his body for two to three hours.
“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––,” the criminal complaint alleges.
Prosecutors have charged her with murder in the first degree, mutilating a corpse, and sexual assault in the third degree. Prior to the start of her trial, Schabusiness had a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity entered by her former attorney – who was eventually allowed to quit the case after she attacked him in an infamous courtroom contretemps caught on camera.
In a defense motion, Schabusiness’ attorney argued that the sexual assault charge should be dropped because such a crime was factually and legally impossible due to Thyrion already being dead.
“The defense asserts and argues that it would be unlikely and almost impossible for any sexual assault to occur with how the dismembered body was found by law enforcement,” the motion reads. “The appendage (penis) was not attached to the body when it was found and the appendage was unable to function due to its condition.”
Alberto Luperon, Vanessa Bein, and Matt Naham contributed to this report.
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