Janet Tyburski

This is quite an unusual case for many reasons. It is also a case in which I would like to have found more information on. However, as is often the case when a plea deal is accepted or agreed upon less information becomes available to the general public.

On March 15, 2015 a body was found on the side of a road in Ridgeville Ohio. Investigators only knew that it was the body of a young woman and apparently informed the media to garner some help in identifying the victim. Several tips were called in including one by Janet Tyburski. She alleged the woman could be her twenty-six year old daughter Rachele. Janet would claim that she had last seen her daughter on the night of March 13^th when she left the home to out with a group of friends. Janet could not identify who those friends were. Authorities would eventually confirm that the body found was that of Rachele Tyburski.

Two months later, on May 15^th authorities would arrest Rachele's mother, Janet, for her murder. Soon after they would also arrest Rachele's nineteen year old sister and charge her with obstructing justice and abuse of a corpse alleging she had helped her mother dump her sisters body. There never seemed to be clear cut information as to what led authorities to Janet other than to say that “surveillance footage cast doubts” to her story. Janet would later confess to Ridgeville police and the prosecutors that she had suffocated her daughter in their Lakewood Ohio home on March 13, 2015. She left the body in her home for two days when she called her daughter Hannah, who was away attending college, and asked her to help her. Janet picked Hannah up from school and the two women moved Rachele's body from the home to the area in which she would later be found, behind a snow bank. Janet then returned Hannah back to school.

It seemed rather cut and dry on the surface and eventually both women would plead guilty. Janet would plead guilty to two counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault, one count of tampering with evidence and one count of abuse of a corpse. She had also been facing a charge of aggravated murder. She negotiated in her own plea deal that the state would offer Hannah a deal that included one count of abuse of a corpse, classified as a misdemeanor, and she would receive no jail time. After her arrest Hannah had received and posted bail so it appears she did not spend a huge amount of time in jail. In her own deal Janet also agreed to waive all rights to appeals. For her deal Janet received a sentence of nineteen years to life, with nineteen years mandatory in April of 2017. A week later Hannah pleaded guilty and was sentenced to “one year good behavior” and was given a 90 day suspended sentence and a $750 fine.

This case is not completely unusual in the fact that a parent enlists the help of one of their children in their plot of murder, however it is on the rare occasion that the parent goes out on such a limb legally for their child. It is not as if it has never happened but in most of the cases in which it is alleged that the parent manipulated or forced a child to help them or even commit a crime, the parent adamantly denies the allegation and is often willing to throw their child “under the bus” to save their own skin.

As is often the case when Janet initially went to court her plea was not guilty. By January of 2016 she changed the plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. In the filing she claimed she was a victim of abuse by Rachele and had acted in self defense. She claimed that she feared not just her life but the life of Rachele's four year old son that also lived with her. At the time her defense asked for funds to have her examined by a mental health expert. Prosecutors argued that the defense had failed to show that her mental state played a “significant factor” in her actions and apparently the judge agreed by denying this motion.

I am sure the prosecution saw this as a ploy to get away with the murder of her daughter and in normal circumstances I would probably agree. However, there did seem to be some questions as to whether some of Janet's claims were true both based on interviewed family members and police reports. It was said that police (“and court”) records show that the mother and daughter had a rocky relationship and yet the only call mentioned in the research that I found happened in September of 2014. Rachele had allegedly called authorities and asked to have Janet removed from her home (this is the only information given) but called back a few minutes later saying that Janet had left and the police were not needed. Initially I had believed that the home was Janet's and that Rachele and her son lived with her but with this call I was left wondering if it was Rachele's home and Janet lived with her. The answer was never made clear.

Janet's husband, Darrell Tyburski was in an auto accident and died in August of 1999. Rachele was eight years old at the time, this would have made Hannah about a year old. It was said that after his death Janet was left to raise three daughters as a single mother but there was no information on the third daughter. I can only assume that she was likely in between Rachele and Hannah in age. Darrell's mother granted several interviews to the media in which she praised Janet as a mother and while stating she loved her granddaughter Rachele stated that she suffered from bi-polar disorder, took medication and would sometimes become violent. I would have liked to have heard more about this relationship between mother and daughter and issues that Rachele may have had. However due to the fact that there was a plea deal made and the fact that within the plea deal Janet agreed to not appeal the case these facts may never be known.

I should be clear that no matter the reason for the murder, the actions that occurred after the murder have no justification. However, I will give Janet the fact that she was willing to lay on the sword for her youngest daughter, which is more than many parent murderers would do. Janet's first chance at parole will be in March of 2030.