TYLAR WITT
‘THEY TURNED ON EACH OTHER’
Tylar Witt’s mother Joanne would have done anything to protect her daughter. So, when she discovered the then-14 year old was in a sexual relationship with Steven Colver, 19, she was horrified. But her attempts at keeping her child away from harm would end in her own murder at the hands of her daughter and lover on 15 June 2009. The meeting between the two future killers began innocently at a coffee shop. Tylar swiftly became obsessed with Colver, who immediately began influencing the impressionable teen. Together, the pair took drugs and engaged in behaviour well beyond Tylar’s teen years – and they were about to cement their twisted bond even further. Somehow, they had fooled Joanne, 47, who was looking for a lodger, into believing that Colver was gay and persuaded her to allow him to move into their home. Renting a room from Joanne meant that he could help the single mother with the mortgage and household expenses. But the true nature of the relationship between Colver and Tylar was soon uncovered when Joanne found her teenage daughter naked in a room with him. Throwing him out, Joanne made a complaint of statutory rape and supplied police with her daughter’s diary as evidence. But the lovesick couple were hell-bent on being together and, continuing their affair in secret, they devised a plan to kill Joanne. And perhaps their plan to run away together after the murder would have succeeded if not for a call from Joanne’s boss to the local sheriff after she failed to turn up for work. But by the time the sheriff arrived at the Witt home, Joanne was already dead. She’d been stabbed 20 times, and her remains were discovered in her bedroom. When Tylar was nowhere to be found, investigators feared that she had been kidnapped or killed, too.
But the revelations about Joanne’s complaint against her daughter’s boyfriend soon came to light and the police realised they were looking for their prime suspect. The pair’s short-lived attempt to escape ended when they confided in a friend about what they had done. Their confidant handed the police the murder weapon and told authorities the pair had confessed. The couple were arrested and charged with murder, and then the oncedevoted lovers turned against each other. Tylar’s first-degree murder charge was reduced to second-degree murder after she agreed to testify against her former boyfriend. She told a court that Colver stabbed her mother with a kitchen knife while she covered her ears and hummed outside the door. But Colver, who was also known by the nickname “Boston” told a different story. He said that on the night in question, Tylar greeted him at the door, asserting, “She was holding a kitchen knife and there was a red stain on her right pant leg. I was shocked. She said, ‘Boston, I did it. I finally did it. My mom’s gone forever’.” He went on to say that Tylar told him that she’d done it “for them”. The couple had planned to take their own lives together in what they viewed as a Romeo and Juliet scenario. At Tylar’s trial, Judge Daniel Proud told her she’d deprived her family of a mother “who dedicated her life to you”, adding, “Joanne Witt loved her daughter. She was a protective and caring mother. She tried her best. I’m sorry, Ms. Witt, because the person who loved you more than anyone in the world is gone.” Colver was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.