Wisconsin women's prison homicide, woman pleads no contest
Taylor Sanchez (Courtesy: FDLCDAO)
FOND DU LAC, Wis. - A prisoner accused of beating her cellmate to death at Wisconsin's women's prison almost two years ago pleaded no contest Monday to homicide.
The backstory:
Prosecutors charged 29-year-old Taylor Sanchez in January 2024 with first-degree intentional homicide in 68-year-old Cindy Schulz-Juedes' death.
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According to a criminal complaint, staff at Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac discovered Schulz-Juedes' body in the cell she shared with Sanchez in July 2023. Sanchez later called her mother and told her that she beat Schulz-Juedes to death with her bare hands because she had stopped taking her medication, was hearing voices and thought Schulz-Juedes had cleaned a toilet with Sanchez's toothbrush, the complaint said.
Sanchez initially pleaded not guilty due to insanity. Online court records show she changed the plea Monday to no contest, a legal construct in which defendants acknowledge there's enough evidence to convict them and will not fight the case in court, but do not admit guilt.
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A message seeking comment from Sanchez's attorney, listed in court records as public defender Michael Queensland, was left Monday afternoon.
Sanchez was serving a two-year sentence for battery out of Kenosha County when she allegedly attacked Schulz-Juedes, Wisconsin Department of Corrections records show. She faces a mandatory life sentence when she's sentenced July 28 on the homicide count.
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Schulz-Juedes was convicted in Marathon County in October 2021 of being a party to first-degree intentional homicide and other charges in the fatal shooting of her husband, Kenneth Juedes, 58. She was sentenced in June 2022 to life in prison without the chance of parole.
Kenneth Juedes, a pharmacist, was shot twice on Aug. 29, 2006, at the couple’s home in the town of Hull.
The Source: The Associated Press provided this report.