The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Woman pleads guilty in daughter’s death
Lakewood resident sentenced to 19 years to life for 2015 killing
Before receiving her sentence, Janet L. Tyburski said she was sorry for moving her daughter’s body and hiding it in North Ridgeville.
Tyburski, 47, of Lakewood, was sentenced April 5 to 19 years to life in prison after she pleaded guilty to an amended indictment of two counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault and single counts of tampering with evidence and abusing a corpse for the murder of her 26-year-old daughter Rachelle in March 2015.
Tyburski seemed relaxed and bubbly in the courtroom, playfully waving to a family member in the gallery and smiling toward reporters and photographers in the jury box from the defendant’s chair.
As part of the deal with prosecutors, Tyburski was required to affirm the truth of her last statement to members of the North Ridgeville Police Department. She reluctantly complied.
According to North Ridgeville police Capt. Marti Garrow, Tyburski admitted to officers in her last interview that she had suffocated her
“it’s something i have to live with, and i’m so sorry to everyone for those actions.”
— Janet L. Tyburski
daughter and then attempted to hide her body in North Ridgeville.
Before the guilty plea was accepted, Tyburski asked what would happen if new evidence came to light exonerating her in the crime.
Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge John R. Miraldi told her it was outside of his scope as a jurist to give her legal advice on post-conviction issues.
Tyburski then apologized
to the community for putting them through this ordeal.
“(I apologize) for my actions, my egregious actions of taking my daughter’s body when I was not in my right mind and placing her in North Ridgeville,” she said. “And involving my other daughter, who was just going about her business as a college student and involving her to help assist me in moving her sister’s body.
“It’s something I have to live with, and I’m so sorry to everyone for those actions.”
Authorities said Tyburski
suffocated her daughter the early morning of March 13, 2015, and kept the body for two days in the home they shared before dumping her in a field early March 15 on Victory Lane in North Ridgeville.
Lorain County Coroner Dr. Stephen Evans has said that Rachele Tyburski’s body had contusions to the face and chest, and scarring on her throat — likely caused by a previous tracheotomy.
Initial screening tests showed that she had signs of blunt force trauma to her head and chest, but none that would have caused her death, Evans
has said.
Janet Tyburski’s 21-year-old daughter Hannah Tyburski has been charged with tampering with evidence, obstructing official business and abuse of a corpse for her alleged role in helping her mother hide the body.
As part of Janet Tyburski’s plea deal, Hannah Tyburski will be offered a plea deal which would drop the obstructing official business and tampering with evidence charges.
Hannah Tyburski is scheduled for a jury trial before Miraldi at 8:30 a.m., April 11.