Florida
State to seek death penalty against man accused of murdering driver
OKEECHOBEE, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a Florida man accused of murdering a Lyft driver whose car he allegedly stole in an attempt to escape another killing.
Okeechobee County prosecutors recently filed a court notice saying they will seek a death sentence against Mathew Flores, who is charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery for the Jan. 30 slaying of 74-year-old Gary Levin. They cited several aggravating circumstances, including that the killing happened while the suspect was fleeing another felony — a robbery — and that it was done in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”
Flores, 36, was indicted earlier this month for Levin’s shooting death. Flores, who is jailed without bond, is set to be arraigned next week in Okeechobee County. No attorney is listed for him in the Levin case in court records.
Flores has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting Jose Carlos Martinez, 43, on Jan. 24 in Hardee County in central Florida.
Investigators say that after killing Martinez, Flores stole several cars to make his way to Palm Beach County, where he had a friend order him a ride using the Lyft phone app. Officials said that person is not facing charges, as they were unaware that Flores was wanted.
Levin accepted the Lyft request and picked Flores up.
Flores shot Levin inside his 2022 Kia Stinger and then dumped his body near Lake Okeechobee, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. Three days later, Flores was arrested in North Carolina after police say he led them on a high-speed chase in Levin’s car.
Investigators found Levin’s body five days after the slaying when they retraced his ride with Flores.
Flores was released from a Florida prison in 2017 after serving a year for auto theft, grand theft and illegal possession of a firearm.
Levin’s family declined to comment on the prosecutor’s decision. His daughter-in-law is an Associated Press reporter.
Indiana
Man sentenced to 195 years for killing 3 people
LEBANON, Ind. (AP) — A judge sentenced a central Indiana man to 195 years in prison Tuesday on his convictions of three counts of murder in the 2021 execution-style slayings of three people.
A jury on Aug. 29 found Chad Grimball, 42, of Thorntown guilty in the slayings of Larry Stogsdill Jr., 42; Stogsdill’s 20-year-old son, Brannon Martin; and Martin’s 19-year-old girlfriend, Grace Bishop, all of Lebanon. Grimball also was found guilty of firearms offenses.
Officers found their bodies on Sept. 8, 2021, at a Lebanon apartment after receiving a report that three people may be dead. All three had been shot in the head. A probable cause affidavit said Grimball’s DNA was found on cigarette butts in a kitchen ashtray in the apartment.
Authorities have said the slayings resulted from an ongoing feud between one of the victims and a friend of Grimball.
“Today’s sentence means that the Defendant will never walk free again. He will spend the rest of his life in prison for the heinous and cowardly acts he committed that day,” Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said in a statement.
Grimball at the time of his conviction was already serving time for a conviction for intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement.
Grimball acted as his own attorney during the trial.
Wisconsin
Woman gets life without parole for killing and dismembering ex-boyfriend
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin woman convicted of killing and dismembering a former boyfriend and scattering his body parts at various locations was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole.
A Brown County judge sentenced Taylor Schabusiness, 25, for the February 2022 killing of Shad Thyrion, 24. A jury had convicted her in July of first-degree intentional homicide, third-degree sexual assault and mutilating a corpse.
Schabusiness had pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, but jury also found that she wasn’t mentally ill when she killed Thyrion.
Prosecutors said Thyrion and Schabusiness had smoked methamphetamine in the basement of Thyrion’s mother’s Green Bay home before Schabusiness strangled, decapitated and dismembered
him. She then left parts of his body throughout the house and in a vehicle, authorities said.
Schabusiness was arrested on Feb. 23, 2022, after Thyrion’s mother called police to her house after she discovered her son’s head in a bucket in the basement.
Brown County Circuit Judge Thomas Walsh said Tuesday before announcing her sentence that “the offense in this case can’t be overstated,” the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported.
“You seem to run out of superlatives. Where the victim’s remains are cut up? These actions are foreign. They shock the community; there aren’t really words for it,” he said.
In February, Schabusiness attacked her previous attorney during a hearing before a deputy wrestled her to the courtroom floor.
Nevada
Man gets life in prison for killing his pregnant girlfriend in 2020
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada man convicted of murdering his pregnant girlfriend on the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal reservation nearly three years ago has been sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.
Michael Burciaga, 36, was sentenced Monday, prosecutors said. He was convicted by a federal jury in June of first-degree murder on tribal land, plus domestic assault by a habitual offender and violating the Protection of Unborn Children Act.
The 37-year-old victim was identified only by her initials, A.D.
Prosecutors said the horrific stabbing attack in December 2020 was witnessed by the woman’s children.
Burciaga confessed to the killing when he returned to the scene of the crime hours later after harming himself, according to authorities.
Burciaga stabbed his girlfriend multiple times with at least two knives at her home in Nixon, northeast of Reno, prosecutors said.
The victim’s 15-year-old daughter was one of three children at the home during the attack and called police to report that her mother’s boyfriend had stabbed her.
According to the FBI, Burciaga came back to the home while Pyramid Lake tribal police were investigating, telling them: “I already know what happened, and I know what I did.”
