Taylor Sanchez, left, and Cindy Schulz-Juedes (Marathon County Sheriff’s Office)
A 28-year-old incarcerated woman in Wisconsin is facing a possible life sentence after she allegedly killed her cellmate earlier this year, beating the other woman to death for allegedly using her toothbrush to scrub their shared toilet.
Taylor Sanchez is now facing one count of first-degree intentional homicide for the July 2023 slaying of 69-year-old Cindy Schulz-Juedes, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Schulz-Juedes was found unconscious and not breathing in her cell at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution on July 19, 2023.
According to court documents obtained by Wausau CBS and CW affiliate WSAW, following the violent incident, Sanchez told her mother that she had stopped taking the medications prescribed to her for mental health purposes and had begun “hearing voices again.” Additionally, she confessed to police that she repeatedly struck Schulz-Juedes, punching and kicking the other woman because the “voices” told her to do so.
Authorities transcribed a portion of the call in court documents, per Green Bay Fox affiliate WLUK.
“At 3:55 mom asks Taylor, ‘What happened, why did you beat somebody up?’ Taylor says, ‘Um, I don’t know.’ She adds, ‘I stopped taking my meds and I started hearing voices again.’ Taylor adds, ‘I thought she was using my toothbrush to scrub the toilet’ and says, ‘I thought she was using my stuff to wipe the floor with and I thought she was messing with me.’ Sanchez’s mom responded is, ‘Oh, God!’”
A subsequent autopsy of the victim reportedly determined that Schulz-Juedes’ manner of death was a homicide and the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. The autopsy report stated that Schulz-Juedes suffered “skull fractures too numerous to count” as well as more than 30 fractured ribs, WLUK reported.
Following the alleged murder, Sanchez appeared in court where a judge set her bond at $1 million and ordered that she have no contact with any members of Schulz-Juedes’ family.
Sanchez was in the process of serving an 18-month sentence after being convicted of battery or threat against a law enforcement official in August 2022. She was then sentenced to an additional two years for battery against another inmate.
Schulz-Juedes was serving a sentence of life without the possibility for parole after being convicted in the 2006 murder of her husband.
Sanchez is currently scheduled to appear in court again on March 21 for a status conference.
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