SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 19, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — A Utah teen who reportedly admitted to helping a 16-year-old girl to hang herself, and to recording the incident, should stand trial on murder charges.
That was the decision of 4th District Court Judge James Brady at the preliminary hearing of Tyerell Pryzbycien, who is accused of encouraging a suicidal friend, 16-year-old Jchandra Brown, to kill herself.
An attorney for Pryzbycien is hoping a jury will consider lesser charges for his client. Murder has a maximum penalty of life in prison. A manslaughter conviction is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Pryzbycien, of Spanish Fork, was charged in May of this year after hunters came upon the body of Brown, hanging from a tree in Payson Canyon. Brown was also from Spanish Fork.
According to information Sgt. Spencer Cannon, of the Utah County Sheriff’s Office, gave Gephardt Daily at the time, Pryzbycien approached the hunters to say he had been with Brown at the time of her death.
There was a cellphone video of Brown’s death, and evidence that connected Pryzbycien to the purchase of the items used in her death.
“It was determined that he played an active role in the death,” Cannon said.
The phone recording included a conversation in which Pryzbycien asked Brown if she still wanted to go through with it, Cannon said. The girl indicated that she did. Pryzbycien also admitted that before the hanging, he picked the girl up in his car and drove her to the chosen location.
“He told detectives he had a sort of fascination with death, and wanted to watch someone die,” Cannon said.
