Serialously with Annie Elise - 21: The Horrifying & Graphic Story of Taylor Schabusiness

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

In this episode, we're staring straight into the eyes of evil– a person has been characterized as so cold and so remorseless they're almost impossible to fathom. A person whose alleged actions are d...rawing terrifying parallels to the notorious serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. The story involves a man from Green Bay, Wisconsin named Shad Thyrion. Shad worked at his family's business with his father and grandfather. He was described as a kind, compassionate person who enjoyed wood carving, camping, games, and family time, but on the inside Shad had a few secrets. And one of those secrets may have ultimately been part of his tragic demise. Don’t get me wrong, his secret interests were no reason for him to die. However, around 3:25 am on February 23rd 2022, he was found dead. In the most horrible way. All that was found was his head… In a bucket. But who would do this? Well, some people are saying it’s someone who is sick and twisted enough to be a female version of Jeffrey Dahmer. Your True Crime BFF, Annie Elise  All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: 10toLife@WMEAgency.com Today's Sponsors: PDS Debt: PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at https://www.pdsdebt.com/save Babbel: Head to https://www.babbel.com/ae for up to 55% off your subscription. 

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an-new episode of Serialistly. It's me, Annie, your true crime BFF, here to break another case down for you today. Now before we get started, I just gotta give a quick shout out. As you heard, we've got some new intro music going on and we've got some new podcast cover art happening and a new intro video if you're watching the video version of this. So I got to give a shout out to my boy Kane who does all of my custom audio for both 10 to Life and for Serialistly for putting together this amazing track for the intro and my dear friend over at the dad challenge podcast josh he is fantastic when it comes to tech stuff and video so he's the one who created the video for
Starting point is 00:01:12 me on here if you guys haven't checked his channel out yet go take a look he doesn't do a ton of true crime he does dabble a bit but he mainly focuses on family vloggers and really how a lot of them exploit their children and use them as a source of their income without the children's consent. So he really does a great job advocating for these children who are kind of roped into these family vlogging channels without necessarily wanting to be a willing participant because minors can't consent. So check him out if you haven't yet. He has a great channel. He's got some snark on there too. So take a look and check him out. But today we're talking true crime and I promised you guys another case. And the case we're talking about today, we are literally staring
Starting point is 00:01:56 straight into the eyes of evil. A person has been characterized as so cold and so remorseless that they're almost impossible to fathom. A person whose alleged actions are drawing terrifying parallels to the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Now this story involves a man from Green Bay, Wisconsin named Shad Thyrion. Shad worked at his family's business with his father and his grandfather. He was described as kind, compassionate, a person who enjoyed wood carving, camping, games, and family time. But on the inside, Shad had a few secrets, and one of those secrets may have ultimately been part of his tragic demise. Now, don't get me wrong. His secret interests were no reason for him to die. Absolutely not. However, around 325
Starting point is 00:02:47 a.m. on February 23rd, 2022, he was found dead in the most horrible, grotesque, and brutal way possible. All that was found was his head inside a fucking bucket. But who would do this, you may ask? Well, some people are saying that it's someone who is sick and twisted enough to be a female version of Jeffrey Dahmer. Since this case is still ongoing, everything alleged in this episode has been sourced from court documents and any other statements that I make are my opinion only. I want to warn you, this episode is extremely graphic, disturbing, and downright sick, so consider this a blanket trigger warning. You may have heard of this case, but I guarantee you
Starting point is 00:03:33 you have not heard all of the details, especially, unfortunately, the sick and depraved details. So today, if you haven't guessed it by now, or if you haven't heard of it at all, we're talking about Taylor Shabiznes, which by the way, I just hate that last name, like Shabiznes. I don't know, whatever. Sorry guys, I'm being petty. Let's get into it. Good evening. Breaking news involving a death investigation that we first told you about nearly one week ago. What is alleged in this case? Beyond bizarre, there's something else going on here. We're going to try to figure it out tonight. Showing this photograph, quite frankly,
Starting point is 00:04:08 I think really could shock the conscience of a jury. This is a serious case. There's serious allegations. There are, the allegations are bizarre and unusual and something that not too many people have ever seen before. There are a lot of ways people are probably describing this case since details were posted to our website early this afternoon. Disturbing, troubling, bizarre at the top of that list. Now the details of what police and prosecutors say Taylor Shabizness did to the man they say
Starting point is 00:04:42 she killed can only be described as incredibly graphic. Taylor Shabiznis, this is the sickest. This is the sickest. At 325 a.m. on February 23rd, officers were dispatched to a house near Green Bay, Wisconsin after an extremely chilling phone call was received. Tara Pankinich had just frantically called 911, and she told the dispatcher that she found her son's severed head inside a bucket. When officers arrived on the scene, they were met with the absolute unimaginable. As they canvassed the home, they uncovered the aftermath of a grisly and brutal murder. They saw a human head and a severed male
Starting point is 00:05:27 organ inside a bucket, along with bodily fluid and two knives. Now, I want to just make a side note here. The male organ, and I'm putting that in quotes if you can't see me on the screen, was not identified in the court documents. It just said male organ, but at the time, a lot of people believed it to be a severed penis. Officers also noticed dried blood all over a mattress. Immediately, many officers and officials began working to figure out who could have done such a horrible, horrible thing. Once the coroner and the medical examiner arrived at the scene and examined the remains, they determined that the head and the neck area had marks that were consistent with strangulation, and they knew that the decapitation happened shortly afterwards. One officer went to speak
Starting point is 00:06:17 with the victim's mother, Tara, who made that initial 911 call. She told them that she had been woken up between 2.30 and 3 a.m. with the sound of a door being slammed, and then she heard a car driving off. She didn't think much of it. She thought that maybe it was just Shad's girlfriend going home to her apartment. However, she noticed that her basement light was on. When she got down into the basement, she didn't see anyone there. Then, as she was walking back upstairs, she saw a black bucket with a blanket or towel type article draped over it, and she had no idea why there would be a bucket sitting right there. Court documents use both blanket and towel to describe whatever that piece
Starting point is 00:06:59 of fabric was that was hanging over the bucket. So Tara bent down, moved this piece of fabric, and that's when she saw her son Shad's severed head. Tara says that the last time that she actually laid eyes on her son Shad was on Monday, February 21st, around 9 30 p.m. Shad's girlfriend, Taylor Shabiznes, picked him up in a van. Taylor was a 24-year-old wife and new mom of a baby boy. Yes, his girlfriend was married with a baby. And on that cold February night, she was hanging out with her boyfriend, Shad. Though this was nothing new between Taylor and her husband, according to people that knew them, allegedly. Apparently, they had an open marriage of sorts. Allegedly. Taylor and Shad went to the same high school, and they had been hooking up on and off since then and into their early adult
Starting point is 00:07:51 years. What do we know about the relationship here, and what do we know about Shad and Shad and Taylor? Well, it seems their relationship was essentially kind of like a friends with benefits situation. We know that they were friends. We know that they were involved in a sexual relationship. It seemed like they grew up in the same area, probably went to the same schools. But outside of that, I don't know how deep it went. I'm not sure, based on what I've learned, if Taylor's business can have a deep relationship maybe with anyone in her life. Taylor had a pretty rough upbringing as well.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Her mom died as a child, and her dad allegedly violently raped her throughout her childhood. As she got older, a friend from her childhood described her as a complete sex addict. According to Shad's mother, Tara, her boyfriend saw Shad and Taylor sometime Monday night into Tuesday early morning when they came back over to the house and went into the basement.
Starting point is 00:08:47 Tara believes that she heard them in the basement throughout the day on Tuesday, and at one point that she heard Taylor talking, although she wasn't home for most of the day and neither was her boyfriend. So they really couldn't be sure who was actually down in the basement, since neither one of them ever went down to look or laid eyes on either one of them. So then she went to bed on Tuesday evening and woke up sometime between 2 30 a.m and 3 a.m on early morning Wednesday because again she thought that she heard that door slam. Tara told officers that she assumed Taylor was gone because the van that Taylor
Starting point is 00:09:21 was driving was now gone as well. So two police officers headed to Taylor's apartment to see if they could gain more clarity on the situation from Taylor. What was going on? When did she last see or speak to Shad and what time did she leave? Because they really wanted to try to piece together a timeline and figure out who on earth was responsible for the absolute bloodbath that they had just uncovered. From what they saw at Tara's home and what was left of Shad, they knew that whoever did this was a monster who needed to be found fast. When officers arrived near Taylor's apartment, they quickly spotted the van that they suspected was Taylor's. They approached the van and stood next to it, peeking through the windows
Starting point is 00:10:02 to see if they could see inside the van. However, while they were looking, they were interrupted by Taylor. She walked out from her apartment in black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt, and as she was walking, she immediately stopped as she realized that she was approaching police officers. And get this, there was dried blood up and down the front and back of her sweatshirt and dried blood all over her hands. The officers made eye contact with Taylor and asked if she knew why they were there and she responded very matter-of-factly, because of my warrant for my arrest. Taylor was brought to the police station for questioning. When brought there, the detective noticed that she had a cut on her thumb and lots of scratches on her arm. Taylor told the detective that those were self-inflicted. The detective started interviewing Taylor and told
Starting point is 00:10:56 her about the victim being found, and Taylor responded to that, that's pretty fucked up, and she confirmed that she knew him. She also confirmed that she had driven the van back from Tara's house. Now, while this interview was taking place, detectives were back at Tara's house and also at Taylor's apartment, and they were looking for the rest of Shad's body. The detective asked Taylor where the rest of his body is, and Taylor responded that it's in the basement. He then asked her what happened and Taylor nonchalantly responded that is a good question and explained that she had blacked out. Now before we continue we are going to take a quick break here to hear from today's sponsor. During the interview Taylor told the detective that her, Shad, and a friend had picked up drugs
Starting point is 00:11:44 together and that they went back to her house on Tuesday. The three of them smoked weed, then apparently her and Shad smoked meth, which she called smoking the bitch. The friend left and then Taylor shot up her and Shad with trazodone before heading to Shad's mom's house. About five minutes after getting there, Shad brought out two sets of chains so that they could have sex. One set of a chain for her and one for him. He put a chain around his neck and Taylor described it as a dog collar. The two of them had used chains and strangulation while having sex before, according to Taylor. This wasn't anything new. Taylor said Shad was face down on the bed and
Starting point is 00:12:25 she got on top of him and that while they were having sex, Taylor started pulling the chains tight. Shad then coughed up blood while she was watching his face and waiting for him to die. And that is a direct quote. She said, I was watching his face and waiting for him to die as she's pulling these chains tighter and tighter on his neck. And it gets even sicker. She said that she was already this far, so she kept going. Then she said, yeah, I liked it. Talking about liking the process of strangling him to death and described how she just went quote unquote crazy. She says it took three to five minutes for him to die and that even when he was coughing up blood she kept choking him because she wanted to see what would happen.
Starting point is 00:13:17 I mean just a sick fucking deranged human being. What do you think is going to happen? What do you think is going to happen, you fucking monster? Sorry, guys. At one point during the interview, Taylor said that she could feel Shad's heart still beating as she was choking him. So she kept pulling and choking him harder and harder, but that he would just not die and that he just kept rebuilding into muscle. So then she goes on to say that she woke up from her supposed blackout, which doesn't really seem like a blackout considering that she's repeating the entire event play by play, but okay. And she says that his face was already purple and that he had blood coming out of his mouth, but she still just kept going. Then she asked the detectives if they knew what it's like to love something so much that you kill it. Taylor also told detectives what she did after Shad was dead.
Starting point is 00:14:13 So get a barf bag ready, guys. Maybe get a can of Sprite to settle your stomach or ginger ale because this next part is absolutely vile. She says that after Shad was already dead, she spent two to three hours playing with his body. She says that she sucked his penis, that she has a dildo that she put in his mouth and then put in his ass, and those are Taylor's words, not mine, and that she did these vulgar, vulgar things to his dead corpse. Detective Graff asked Taylor if when she was choking him, if he tried to fight back at all, and she said that he did. He also clarified with Taylor that she was in the basement with Shad's deceased body all during the day of Tuesday into Tuesday night
Starting point is 00:14:58 and into the early hours of Wednesday morning. It's assumed that she had dismembered him at some point during that entire time frame that she was in the basement dismembered him at some point during that entire time frame that she was in the basement with him. Now at some point during this interview Taylor started making comments and saying and I quote damn the head I can't believe I left the head though. So he asked her where the rest of the body is again and she goes on to tell him it's in the basement and then she is quoted saying the police are going to have fun trying to find all the organs as I have dismembered the body. Making it sound like it is some sick little game now. That the police are going to have to play like hide and seek to find all of his organs
Starting point is 00:15:37 because she hid them and stashed them in places. It is unbelievable and just so, so sick. So she says they're going to have fun trying to find all of his organs. But then she mentioned that there should be a foot or a leg in the minivan, though. So you don't have to go hunt for all of his organs because there should be a foot or a leg inside my minivan. When asked how she dismembered him, she says that she used knives from the kitchen, but that the bread knife worked best because of its serrated blades. She says that the knives should be in a black bag as well as the body parts that were in the basement, and that those would be in bags because she used whatever
Starting point is 00:16:14 bags she could find. Now during all of this, remember, investigators are searching the basement, and detectives are continuing the conversation with Taylor as they're interviewing her. So everything's adding up that Taylor is the one who did this, clearly, because not only what she is saying, but it's matching what they are finding. When the medical examiner paid a visit to the van, he found human body parts, including legs, in a crockpot box behind the driver's seat. Back at the basement, other body parts were in various bags, and the upper torso was located in a storage tub with a carving knife along with internal organs. The mattress was soaked in blood, as well as the concrete around the bed. On top of the entertainment console, officers found a glass pipe and a bag with light-colored powder inside,
Starting point is 00:17:06 consistent with the meth that Taylor says they were smoking. There was also an unfinished stand-up shower that had blood spatter all around it. Taylor tells them that the plan was to bring all of the body parts with her, but that she got paranoid and got lazy, and that she thought that it was just the dope slash the meth that was making her paranoid. So because of this, she only ended up putting the leg and foot in the van and then forgot about the head that was in the bucket. She says that she didn't mean to kill him, but that she liked choking him and just kept doing it.
Starting point is 00:17:43 She went on saying that she was not prepared because this was not planned and that she put a bucket at the edge of the bed below Shad's head as she was working on decapitating him. She used the bucket and the storage tub to catch the blood throughout the dismembering process and then dumped all of that blood in the shower. So envision that for a second. He's laying on the bed. She moves his body so that his head is dangling off of the bed. She puts a bucket right underneath his head where it's dangling off of the mattress and then she starts sawing his head off so that it falls in the bucket. It is fucking horrifying. When asked if she thought that it was the right thing to do, she responded by saying she did it anyways. Taylor was charged with first degree intentional homicide from mutilating a corpse and third degree sexual assault. She is considered a repeater
Starting point is 00:18:38 because she was convicted of battery or threatening a judge, prosecutor, or law enforcement member and has other previous convictions. You guys cover everything at the Daily Mail. This is way up there on the, like, wow, beyond sick. There is no way to oversell how disturbing this case and this crime is. I mean, when we sit here and cover these cases, and when I come on the show and I talk to you about them, we're usually talking about murder, about a loss of life, which in and of itself is just a disregard for humanity. hours after the crime the her allegedly saying that she toyed with the body sexually for two
Starting point is 00:19:26 or three hours before making the decision to decapitate him with household items dismember him and then hide the body parts in various boxes in places almost like a messed up scavenger hunt i have never in the course of my career seen anything like this. Joseph Scott Morgan, your line of work, forensic death investigator for years, right? Wrote a book about it, Blood Beneath My Feet. Have you come across things like this in your career? Where would you place what we are learning about Taylor's business and what happened in the basement of that home?
Starting point is 00:20:16 I've only had over the course of my career in New Orleans and Atlanta, I only had a couple of dismemberments. And I will say, doing, you know, hosting body bags in particular, I have seen an uptick in the number of dismemberments. And I find that kind of interesting. It seems as though that there's a callus that has been formed to this, because you have to get to the point in your mind where not only are you killing someone, but you're comfortable enough to the point where you can take, as you mentioned, household items. We're not talking about surgical instruments here and literally taking a body apart in order to dispose of it. There's a certain, there's a certain comfort, maybe a numbness to it. I don't know, but it is, it, it is very
Starting point is 00:21:12 shocking. And I think when a lot of the details come out from what these men and women observed at the scene, this is something that will live in their memories forever and ever as investigators. She was also on probation when she killed Shad, literally weeks before. In January of 2022, she was put on probation. And then when she was arrested for Shad's murder, she was missing the ankle monitor that she was supposed to be wearing. The monitor was cut just a few hours before it's believed that she killed Shad. And right when the monitor was cut, a warrant was issued for Taylor's arrest for violating the conditions of her release.
Starting point is 00:21:51 But she wasn't located until after Shad was already dead. So she was of course deemed as a flight risk, clearly, since she cut off her ankle monitor and has no regard for what the definition of probation is, and she was placed on a $2 million cash bail at Brown County Jail in Wisconsin. Now, if you think you've heard it all in this case, just wait. It gets even crazier, and we're going to get right into that as soon as we come back from this quick break. After the horrifying news of Shad's murder spread, it seemed that initially Taylor's husband was standing by her side and thought that she was innocent in all of this, which I don't know how, but okay. He even
Starting point is 00:22:32 updated his Facebook profile to his bio to say, I do trust my beautiful wife. I will do anything to protect her. Stay strong, baby boo. I love you. However, those posts and his bio have since been deleted. Taylor has some weird posts too, including a very lengthy post about sex addiction and then a separate post that reads, went off and told an addict, I'll never stop buying you dope so I could sit back and watch you die. She also updated her nickname on Facebook as T. Killa. The current situation of Taylor's marriage and her husband is unknown, other than he is in prison on unrelated charges. And their last name, Shabiznes, which I said in the beginning bothered me for some reason, it seems to be a last name that they both made up. Taylor's maiden name is Taylor Denise Coronado.
Starting point is 00:23:27 I've seen a few things on Reddit linking her with trafficking in Houston, but those reports are not Taylor. That is a completely different person named Denise Marie Coronado, and she has been in a Texas prison during all of this. A longtime Wisconsin journalist, Ann Schwartz, said in an interview with WBAY News that the crimes that Taylor is accused of sounded eerily similar to another Wisconsin resident, none other than serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. In this interview, she said, and I quote, one of the things that I have found out from talking to different sources of mine on this case is that the suspect in this case had a very had an infatuation almost with Jeffrey Dahmer and with Jeffrey Dahmer crimes. Now she did not
Starting point is 00:24:13 disclose who the sources were but she does have very strong ties to the law enforcement community since she was the original Milwaukee reporter who actually broke the story about Jeffrey Dahmer back in 1991. And if this is true, does this mean that there was a cannibal element that hasn't been released yet? Or just the dismembering and fascination with the body parts as well as the necrophilia element? I don't even know. If in fact she's done what she allegedly admitted to police that she did, this sexual assault of someone who she has just killed? Well, we don't know what the meth had to do with it,
Starting point is 00:24:56 unleashing kind of a psychotic, violent fantasy that she acted on. If she's a necrophiliac, that's someone who is attracted to and wants to make love to a dead body. So clearly she falls into that category. And we don't really know much about why people are engaging in necrophilia because it's usually done in secret and it's not that common. I think it affects less than 1% of the people out there. So we are seeing like a combination of factors that are unhealthy. My first thought was, is she a victim of incest or some kind of sexual violence herself? And that there's a vengeful component towards that she showed towards this friend,
Starting point is 00:25:46 former friend of hers, and it just kind of took on a life of its own. In May of 2022, Taylor was ruled competent to assist in her own defense after a court order for evaluation was set by the judge. Taylor was arraigned in July of 2022, and despite quite literally confessing in great detail to what had happened, the judge entered not guilty pleas on her behalf and then scheduled her trial for October of 2022. However, in a status hearing update in September of 2022, Taylor changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity and because she did this it postponed her trial and the judge ordered more mental health evaluations to be completed. One for the state and
Starting point is 00:26:33 one for the defense. A month later in October of 2022 a doctor's report on Taylor had not been completed and the doctor asked for more time. The court gave the approval and scheduled a hearing for November of 2022. At this hearing, the issue of mental competency was going to be heard and ruled on. Now, the results of her evaluations are obviously sealed at this point, but the evaluators did not come up with the same conclusion. However, despite that, the judge, Judge Walsh, found that she was in fact competent to stand trial. At the hearing, Taylor's defense attorney, Quinn Jolly, asked for another exam to be done, this time by a psychiatrist from another office, but the judge denied the motion. Given the results of three exams so far and two out of three signaling that she is indeed competent to stand trial, he then set a trial date for March of 2023.
Starting point is 00:27:31 The judge at this point was clearly over the delays and the pushbacks and said basically, look, we can get evaluations and more evaluations for the rest of time, but at some point we need to set a trial date. However, even though Taylor has been ruled mentally competent, she does have the right to argue that she wasn't able to tell right from wrong at the time that the crime was committed. So in February of 2023, Taylor had another competency hearing before her trial was due to start in March. The doctor who was supposed to attend the hearing couldn't make it, so Taylor's attorney requested to push the trial back to the middle of May so that the doctor would be able to testify on the results, which I'm assuming Taylor's defense wants the results in since they probably do help her. But as soon as the judge agreed to set the trial for May 15th, all of the sudden,
Starting point is 00:28:22 out of nowhere, Taylor, who was in handcuffs, jumped at her attorney, trying to hit him with her elbow. One of the sheriffs tackled Taylor and was almost in a wrestling match with her to keep her on the ground, and Taylor kept resisting and trying to get loose. It feels very reminiscent of Letitia Stouck although that wasn't in the courtroom Letitia Stouck is the stepmother who brutally murdered her stepson and when she was in the back of the cop car she took the monster energy can and whacked the officer in the head with it and then like wiggled out of her handcuffs and tried to escape I mean just complete fucking nut jobs which part of you has to wonder are they really crazy do they think they can actually get away and attack this person?
Starting point is 00:29:05 Or are they doing that to play the part, to look crazy, so that they can further bolster the idea of them having an insanity plea? You never know with calculated assholes like this. So after she tackled her own freaking attorney, the entire courtroom was cleared, except for a few court staff members and the sheriffs who were trying to get Taylor under control. Since her ankles weren't cuffed she was able to use her legs to continue fighting and at one point it looks like she has her foot in the cord of the sheriff's taser but I'm not sure entirely so if you're watching the video version of this let me know what you think. The sheriffs kept telling her to relax, saying, Taylor, relax, relax. And then one even said, Taylor, you went crazy on your own attorney. You attacked him. And telling her, relax, mija, in Spanish. And just everybody's Now the audio isn't great, and you can kind of hear Taylor mumbling a little bit,
Starting point is 00:30:12 but you can't hear what she is saying really at all. Once the officers were able to restrain her, she was taken out of the courtroom. Taylor's attorney, who she just went ape shit crazy on, obviously requested to withdraw from the case, which, hi, no shock there. So Taylor got a new court-appointed attorney, and her trial is currently scheduled to take place in July, just literally a month away, and we will get into the details of that later on. But my question with this attack is, why did Taylor attack her own attorney? Again, was it to make her look like she's actually crazy? Or is she legitimately insane?
Starting point is 00:30:50 Taylor had another hearing in May of 2023. Taylor's business will be back in Brown County Court this morning. She's charged in the gruesome murder of a Green Bay man last year. Kristen Allen is live outside the courthouse this morning to tell us what's expected to happen today. The court hearing is scheduled for 8.30 this morning here at the Brown County Courthouse here behind me. There was a motion hearing earlier this month, and since then, there have been several motions that are out there that have not been decided on. One of the most recent ones is a motion to drop the charge of third-degree sexual assault, so we may hear the state's response to that motion at the hearing this morning. Now as I said there was a motion hearing earlier this month as well and during that hearing the judge denied a motion to reduce Taylor's business's bond. It remains at $2 million. The defense also asked the judge to consider a motion to prohibit the prosecution from participating in the jury picking process,
Starting point is 00:31:45 which both sides typically do. The judge said he's never considered a motion like that before and isn't likely to order one. Shabiznes is accused of killing and dismembering Shad Therrien at his mother's home in February of 2022. She's charged with first degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and and third-degree sexual assault. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. The court process has been lengthy due to multiple competency hearings and mental evaluations, along with numerous motions that have been filed. Back in February of this year, she lunged at her attorney in court.
Starting point is 00:32:49 That attorney has since been removed from her case. Her new lawyer has also asked for a venue change for the trial, saying it would be impossible for her to get a fair trial. That motion was also denied. As of now, her trial is scheduled for the end of July. And we will be in the courtroom today for this hearing and let you know what the latest developments are. Reporting live in Green Bay, Kristen Allen, Action 2 News. With her trial approaching and Taylor not getting out of the trial due to competency issues, many people started to wonder what Taylor's defense would be like. After Taylor's last hearing, the judge ordered a few motions to be unsealed. And with that came insight into motions to dismiss from Taylor's defense team. So she's charged with the murder. She's also charged with sexually assaulting the corpse. She's also charged with dismembering the corpse and leaving the head of the victim in a bucket in his mom's basement. Sick stuff. So what is the defense here?
Starting point is 00:33:26 How do you defend this? Well, our great producer Cody Thomas is going through some of the papers and filings in the case and came across what the defense is going to argue here to try to get out from under some of these charges, including those sexual assault charges. Take a listen. Christopher T. Froelich, on behalf of the defendant Taylor Shabiznes, moves the court to formally dismiss the charge in Count 3, third-degree sexual assault, due to lack of evidence. Third-degree sexual assault, as defined, is committed by someone who has sexual intercourse with another person without consent.
Starting point is 00:34:08 Sexual intercourse is defined by any intrusion, however slight, by any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal opening of another. The state alleges that a sex toy was placed into the anus of the alleged victim, yet the state lab report yields an inconclusive result for DNA evidence. Any claims that the defendant placed a sex toy into the anal opening of the deceased is without merit based on the state of Wisconsin lab of hygiene reports. The defense also argues the victim was not a person at the time of the alleged incident as he was deceased. The defense asserts that once the person is deceased, they are no longer a person as defined under the jury instructions and statute. The defense argues that the victim's penis was detached from his body
Starting point is 00:34:50 and found on February 23rd, 2022, when law enforcement came to the home at Stony Brook Lane. There were apparently other alleged body parts found in a Jimmy Choo bag, in an Under Armour bag, and in a Crock-P pot box found in the Chrysler minivan. The defense argues that it would be unlikely and almost impossible for any sexual assault to occur with how dismembered the body was when found. The penis was not attached to the body and was therefore unable to function due to its condition. But before we go any further, I'm sorry,
Starting point is 00:35:21 are we on the same planet as her attorneys? Because when I heard that, I couldn't believe my ears. You've got to be kidding me. This is exactly like if the glove don't fit, you must acquit on steroids. Even the language used in their motion was so appalling. Once the person is deceased, then they are no longer a person as defined under the jury instructions and statute. Well, he was still a person when, as your client said, he was fighting back as he was being choked to death. Or did we just forget that she confessed to that part? Or maybe he couldn't say the word stop because, again, as your client said, his face was purple and there was blood coming out of his
Starting point is 00:36:02 mouth. Maybe he was trying to say stop but all that was coming out was the blood. Is there a point in torture where just because a person can't respond back in plain English because you're in the middle of killing them that they are no longer a person? And just because someone is dead doesn't mean you can't possibly have sexually assaulted them or make it less of a rape in my opinion. You are still assaulting their body without their consent. It is disgusting. Whether it's a cold body or a warm body, it ain't right. It ain't good. Rape is rape is rape. Now I don't know if they are making that argument because Shad was a man or maybe they don't see how men can also be victims, but like
Starting point is 00:36:42 come on. It's 2023. That's like saying that someone who killed a little girl and assaulted her with sex toys and their mouths afterward didn't technically rape anyone because the little girl wasn't a person after they were killed. And I find it very hard to believe that any sane defense team would ever argue that. But this is the one that really got me. When the defense argued that the badly dismembered body would have made it impossible for Taylor to sexually assault Shad. In the motion, they say, and I quote, it would be unlikely and almost impossible for any sexual assault to occur with how the dismembered body was found by law enforcement. The appendage, in parentheses,
Starting point is 00:37:25 penis, was not attached to the body when it was found, and the appendage was unable to function due to its condition. Uh, hi, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Newsflash, just because she chopped his penis off afterwards doesn't make Taylor allegedly look like any less of a fucking freak necrophiliac. Sorry I'm cursing so much guys but this bitch just like infuriates me. I mean seriously are they really suggesting that as long as you cut a body part off afterwards it's not assault or that rape doesn't count if the penis didn't function? Because I'm pretty sure you could still insert things into his anus, his back cavity, or his dismembered head and into his mouth like she said she did with her dildos like give me a break. I get that everyone is entitled to a zealous defense but like oh my god
Starting point is 00:38:17 no wonder the defense wanted to keep their sorry ass motions sealed because they are just ridiculous and not only that, but Taylor is the one that confessed to all of this in the first place, which actually brings me to my next topic. Taylor's attorney want her meth-fueled confession tossed out entirely because they say she was on meth. In the prosecution's response, they said, and I quote, the defense argues that there is no evidence to support a sexual assault other than the defendant's own statements when she was under the influence of meth and trazodone. The defendant's alleged answers are not reliable due to being under the influence of drugs. Well, her statements were pretty reliable when she told law enforcement exactly what they would find and where.
Starting point is 00:39:06 So she's just not reliable on the parts that make her look pretty bad now? Got it. Make it make sense. I mean, meth-fueled or not, does that make what she said a lie? Obviously not. It matches the evidence. Additionally, according to reports, Taylor's attorney says that evidence that was seized from her apartment as part of the investigation into the murder of Shad shouldn't be allowed at the trial because the warrant was faulty and the person named on the warrant didn't have the authority to search her apartment on Eastman Avenue, but the search warrant only lists one man as the resident, even though she lived there. In the prosecution's response, they said that the defense asserts that law enforcement knew that the defendant resided at this apartment, and yet they failed to include Taylor's name
Starting point is 00:40:00 on the search warrant. They also say that the defense seeks to suppress all evidence found in the apartment at Eastman Avenue because the police A, failed to get a search warrant for Taylor's bedroom, B, the police failed to name the defendant on the search warrant for the apartment, and C, police failed to get consent from the defendant to perform a search of the apartment. And you guys guessed it. The prosecution sees things otherwise, saying the warrant authorized a search of the entirety of the apartment for the items delineated in the warrant that it is constitutionally sufficient to delineate a specific apartment to be searched in a multi-unit building, saying it's irrelevant that Taylor was not named in the search warrant because the warrant was not seeking particular items from her person, but rather things from the property. Also, it seems that in the defense's original motion, which is still sealed, that they included extremely graphic pictures as exhibits to
Starting point is 00:40:57 prove their point in this. The state responded by saying that the state is utterly at a loss why the defense felt it necessary to attach Exhibit C to this motion. It is inflammatory, irrelevant, unnecessary, and potentially violative of the crime victim's rights to be treated with dignity, respect, courtesy, sensitivity, and fairness. So let me get this right. When you're backed into a corner, you just show some gruesome pictures to prove a point? Is that how it works? The state also objected to the defense's motion to dismiss the charge completely on the basis that it is far too late into the proceedings for the defense team to seek a dismissal of a charge in this case. The judge is supposed to rule on all of these motions on June 13th, 2023. What is alleged in this case, beyond bizarre, there's something else going on here. We're going to try to figure it out tonight.
Starting point is 00:41:51 But she was in court today and a lot of issues came up. And through that, you had testimony. We learned a little bit more about Taylor's business and what happened here and what she allegedly said. Let's take a listen. During your interview of her on February 23rd of 2022, she made some comments that were odd, weird, unusual, correct? Things like that in the past she had feelings that she loved something so much that she killed it. Yes. Did she go on to tell you that she and the deceased were smoking the bitch? Yes.
Starting point is 00:42:39 And the bitch means ice, correct? Well, I asked her what that meant, what the bitch meant, and she referred to it as ice. And ice, did you take that to mean street slang for methamphetamine? Yes. From your point of view, did it appear that drug use had been going on in that basement? There was a meth pipe. It appeared to have been used by the smoke jar. There was a gin baggie next to it that had what I recognize from experience as probably methamphetamine.
Starting point is 00:43:15 I later field tested it for methamphetamine. So there was evidence that that was there, yes. Did you come to find out that jeans were maybe used, dog collars, things of that sort? Yes, she did indicate that. Did she indicate that one was put on her neck? At one point, I believe she said that she had had one placed on her neck, and there was one placed on Chad's. On that day, did you have cause to draft a search warrant of a man? Yes.
Starting point is 00:43:41 And what information did you have at that point when you were asked to draft that search warrant? I had been told that Ms. Shabiznas had taken, driven that van from the victim's residence to where she was currently staying and that there may have been body parts in the van. I did ask her if she had, A, was on her medications, and B, if she had been diagnosed with any mental health disorders. And she indicated in all of us she was unsure. As I said, right now Taylor's trial is scheduled to be set to begin on July 24, 2023. I have a gut feeling that something will push it back, but I genuinely hope that I'm wrong. I also want to talk about the one person who seems to be forgotten a lot
Starting point is 00:44:32 in the media, mainly because his family has been pretty tight-lipped since all of this happened, or maybe because the media doesn't have much sympathy for certain victims who they deem less likable, which usually has something to do with drugs or their history, and that person is Shad. Having an addiction doesn't make someone less of a person, ever. Taylor allegedly tortured this man and struggled to fight her off of him and take his very last breaths. It's absolutely terrifying when you think about what must have been going through his mind in those final moments and the fear that he must have felt. No matter the outcome of Taylor's trial, Shad deserves justice and I hope that his family gets the justice that they deserve.
Starting point is 00:45:17 His poor, poor mother. I cannot imagine the utter disbelief, panic, and heartbreak, and I truly pray that she can try to erase that horrific image out of her mind. I don't know how a mother deals with that or how any parent, for that matter, deals with seeing their children like that. It's unfathomable. It's something that no parent should ever have to go through, period. I know that today's case was especially grotesque and vulgar and wild. Again I apologize for getting a little crazy in there but like this one just really really irks me and gets under my skin. So I'm curious to know your thoughts on a lot of these things. What do you think the true motive was? was she truly just high out of her mind on meth and like not in her right mind or was there something else there she just sick and she's like
Starting point is 00:46:09 a jeffrey dahmer wannabe why'd she attack her attorney is she legitimately crazy was she trying to look crazy so that she could have the insanity defense maybe i'll put a pull up on the podcast on spotify to get your way in on this because like there's just so much I can't wrap my mind around when it comes to this case but trial's coming up probably will get pushed back hopefully not but trial is coming up so this is one where we definitely are going to come back with a part two and not only to follow the trial and what happens but at that point the discovery is going to be heard things will be unsealed and we are going to learn so much more about her mental state her evaluations
Starting point is 00:46:50 the crime itself and everything so we'll definitely do a part two on this case if you don't want to miss that and you don't want to miss other true crime cases that i talk about with you on here make sure you take a quick second whatever app you're listening to this on whether it is Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, whatever it is just double check in the corner there should be an option to follow the podcast make sure that you're following so that you'll see it on your phone as soon as those episodes get posted and if you have an extra 30 seconds before you go or before you get out of your car or before you start your work day please just take a few seconds to write a quick review and rate this podcast on your app it is such an amazing and free way to support the podcast and I would really really greatly appreciate it and also side note by following the podcast
Starting point is 00:47:35 you will get notified as soon as I put bonus episodes out there that aren't in the normal Monday release schedule but the only way you're going to know that is if you follow the podcast but we do have some bonus episodes coming up soon and I usually drop bonus episodes when there's like a real-time case update like the Idaho case where I just have to like drop an update you know within minutes it's easy for me to just record it really quick and post it so make sure you're following guys thanks again for tuning into this week's episode with me I have some very very exciting news coming up that I can't wait to share with you guys. I am in the process of finalizing it, so I can't wait until I'm able
Starting point is 00:48:09 to share that with you, but lots of good, amazing things happening. So as always, I appreciate your support and love that you are on this journey with me and we're besties, true crime besties. All right, guys, thanks again for tuning into another episode of Serialistly. I will see you bright and early next Monday with an all new case or maybe a bonus episode before then. You'll never know unless you follow. All right, guys. Thanks again for tuning in.
Starting point is 00:48:32 And I'll be talking with you very, very soon. All right. Until the next one, guys. This is Annie, your true crime bestie, signing off. Bye.

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