A Wisconsin woman accused of killing and mutilating her boyfriend last year attacked her attorney in court Tuesday morning.
The attack, captured on video by Nexstar’s WFRV, occurred while Taylor Schabusiness, 25, was in court for a competency hearing. In the video, below, Schabusiness is then seen being wrestled to the ground by a Brown County Sheriff’s deputy as her attorney moves away.
The deputy continues to restrain a barefoot Schabusiness until a second deputy comes into the courtroom.
Schabusiness was arrested back in February of 2022 for allegedly killing and decapitating her then-boyfriend, Shad Thyrion. In the criminal complaint, Green Bay Police said Schabusiness and Thyrion had been using drugs before engaging in sexual activity.
Schabusiness then allegedly ‘went crazy’ and strangled Thyrion before decapitating him and leaving his head in a bucket in the basement of the house they were in.
She was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and third-degree sexual assault. If convicted, Schabusiness could face life in prison.
WFRV spoke with Lieutenant Tim Bernklau with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department about the incident. He is the supervisor for security at the courthouse.
“Sometimes we can’t predict outbursts and behavior like that, so we do our best to try to mitigate it, but it doesn’t always work our way, and today was an example of that, but luckily nobody was hurt,” Bernklau says.
According to Bernkalu, inmates are always accompanied by an armed deputy. While they typically try to have two deputies for every inmate, the other deputy was on his way to Schabusiness’ courtroom from another hearing when she attacked her attorney Quinn Jolly.
Fortunately, one officer was enough in this instance to get control of the inmate.
“In the courthouse, we have a lot of cases where emotions run high, and we have to deal with that on a daily basis,” Bernklau says. “We try to mitigate outbursts as much as we can by doing research on the case itself. We try to have additional deputies there when it’s required, but again, we can’t always predict outbursts and behavior like that.”
It isn’t clear if Schabusiness will face any additional charges after Tuesday’s incident. Her competency hearing has been rescheduled for March 6, and her trial is set to begin on May 15.
