Editor’s note: Article contains graphic images that may be inappropriate for some audiences.
(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) A Minnesota court has found an illegal immigrant who allegedly beheaded his girlfriend in broad daylight guilty of first-degree murder.
The victim, MyPillow employee America Mafalda Thayer, a legal immigrant from Cuba, reportedly had changed her first name to America upon becoming a U.S. citizen.
When the gruesome attack occurred in suburban Minneapolis in July 2021, Thayer and her longtime boyfriend, Alexis Saborit, 44, were in a car together on the way to court.
Saborit, who was also from Cuba, was reportedly facing charges in connection with allegedly setting fire to their apartment.
During the car trip, he allegedly became enraged when Thayer informed him that she wanted to break up. Media reports have suggested that their 12-year relationship was “tumultuous.”
The man allegedly assaulted her with an eight-pound dumbbell and then cut off her head with a machete in the incident that occurred in Shakopee, Minnesota.
According to CBS News, “Witnesses saw a man — later identified as Saborit — pull a headless body out of a car at Fourth Avenue and Spencer Street, dispose of a machete and run away. He was found nearby and arrested.”
Powerline Blog co-founder Scott Johnson previously told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that in 2012, Saborit was subject to two deportation orders but that “ICE was not able to deport him because Cuba wouldn’t take him back.”
In general, first-degree murder requires evidence that a defendant engaged in some sort of advance planning, even on a limited basis.
Judge Caroline Lennon, who presided over the case, asserted that “the court finds beyond a reasonable doubt that [the] defendant acted with premeditation,” the Star Tribune detailed.
Her ruling added that his “decision to put down the dumbbell and use the machete is evidence of a deliberate mental thought process. After the murder, the defendant’s actions in fleeing the scene, disposing of the murder weapon and other evidence in separate locations, and changing his clothing show the defendant’s consciousness of guilt.”
In Minnesota, a first-degree murder verdict, if it holds up, requires life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Minnesota defendants found guilty of this charge have the right to appeal directly to the state supreme court.
The video below purports to have been recorded at the crime scene. Warning for graphic content:
Have y’all seen this murder and decapitation in Shakopee MN today? #shakopee #mn #murder #wtf pic.twitter.com/edVm3wLwFk
— 🅱️ig Chris (@folllowbigchris) July 29, 2021
Saborit is due back in court on June 1 for the mental illness phase of the proceedings, although the judge had previously ruled that he was mentally competent to stand trial.
Saborit reportedly told cops during the initial investigation that he “was really mad at that moment,” but also that he acted in self-defense, because Thayer was supposedly trying to poison him.
Former MyPillow co-workers described Thayer “as extremely hard-working, caring and the kind of person that would never hurt a fly” and “a sweet and loveable person who befriended everyone,” Minnesota’s Southwest News Media reported.
Reacting to the verdict, her son, Charles Thayer, said “This monster deserves to be put away for life.”
