In a peaceful Green Bay, Wisconsin, community, a mother’s world was turned upside down on February 23, 2022, when she walked into her son’s basement bedroom.
A bucket on the ground held Shad Thyrion’s severed head, eyes glazed over amongst a nightmare scenario. His mother, 25, stood frozen in terror, dialing 911 as her screams rang out throughout the home and for eternity brought unspeakable pain to her house.
A constant dose of intense and regular drama: Taylor Schabusiness, Shad’s girlfriend on the side and the mother of his child, who went from a troubled childhood to a life-destroying addiction.
Born in 1997, she lost her own mother young to alcoholism and bounced between Texas relatives and legal issues, including battery and resisting arrest.
By 2020, married to Shad under the nonsensical new name of “Shabusiness,” she struggled with meth-fueled demons that consigned her to a foggy pastiche of highs and concealed rage.
Taylor, high after a night of using drugs, coaxed Shad to the basement that fateful evening for paranoia-twisted s*x.
She strangled him with a chain from what looked like a dog’s choke collar that she had put around his neck, while he turned purple and blood foamed from his mouth.
High on the rush of power, she stabbed him repeatedly and then raped his corpse in vile acts of control, her mind numbed by meth’s cruel grip.
Bloodied footprints guided investigators to Taylor’s home, his leg belonging to Shad inside a crockpot box amid cleaning supplies.
She admitted in with graphic detail bursts emerged during her questioning, chuckling about the “fun” as she maintained that there were no blackouts.
Her flat, lucid recitation so chilled the detectives that they had to leave work early that day; they found weapons, gloves, and bags with bits of him in various places across the city.
Though Taylor was arrested on charges of first-degree homicide, mutilating a corpse, and third-degree sexual assault, bail at $2 million was stuck.
She pleaded not guilty, with her lawyer raising a mental defect defense amid claims of childhood trauma. Sarah had never seen a single day in court, but two psychologists there found her competent, more than competent, in fact: Her nonchalance was apparently enough of a red flag to seal the deal.
The 2023 trial revealed her chilling calculation; the jurors took just an hour to deliver guilty verdicts on all counts. And witnesses described her gruesome detachment, from the bloody basement to dumping parts in a river.
The family of Shad, heart torn from heart, prayed for no mercy, their son’s gentle and manly spirit being beaten out of him by her frenzy.
Judge Greg B. Conway sentenced Taylor to life without parole and 10 to 15 years of mutilation and assault. She will work at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a maximum-security women’s prison with more than 1,000 inmates.
Her young son, left with grandparents, is parentless, a mute casualty of her undisciplined demons.
Shad’s loved ones, from a futile plea for leniency by his father to siblings who promise he will be remembered, turn grief into advocacy.
They stress meth’s mortal toll, and urge treatment over tolerance for the grip of addiction. But Green Bay, thought to be immune, now murmurs its cautionary tales: seek help earlier; shadows devour the innocent.
Taylor’s tale will tear at your soul, a violent reminder that drugs laced with love kill. Families everywhere pause, wondering how to see the storm approaching.
Let’s make a fight for recovery in Shad’s name, and turn one tragedy into a lifeline for the lost of tomorrow.
