A New York man was sentenced to 25 years to life for strangling his wife to death in an argument and hiding her body in the trunk of a rental car found months later by employees on the rental car lot.
Scott Tyrell, 58, learned his fate on Monday in the death of Lisa Dashnaw-Tyrell, 57. He pleaded guilty in September to second-degree murder and concealment of a corpse.
The victim’s family members took Tyrell to task at his sentencing, local ABC affiliate WVNY reported.
“Look at me. I want you to look at me,” the victim’s brother said. “You took away a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, a friend to many.”
The station reported the oldest daughter, Heather Young, also speaking out in court.
“Scott Tyrell deserves to have the same torture done to him that he did to my mother,” she said.
Tyrell also spoke and broke down in tears, the outlet reported.
“What I did was horrible, horrible, horrible,” Tyrell said. “That’s all I got to say. Words are cheap. But I am sorry to the Dashnaw family because I did a very evil thing, what I did.”
He killed her sometime in late March in their home in Peru, a town upstate, then placed her body in the trunk of his rental car. The body was discovered on May 28 when the car had been repossessed and returned to the lot of an Enterprise Rental Car, authorities said in a press release.
New York State Police responded to the Enterprise in Plattsburgh, about 15 miles north of Peru. A trooper, who happened to be there for an unrelated complaint, was told by Enterprise employees of an overdue rental car that was reclaimed under suspicious circumstances, officials said.
The vehicle was found by Enterprise at a residence in the town and towed back to Enterprise.
The tow truck operator asked the trooper to be present when they searched the vehicle.
When Enterprise employees checked the vehicle, Dashnaw-Tyrell’s body was found in the trunk. Authorities quickly learned that her husband was the last known operator of the vehicle and arrested him during a traffic stop.
The victim’s nephew, Larry Macey Jr., told the outlet about the grim discovery.
“She was in there for so long that the body was decayed,” he said. “You couldn’t tell who it was.”
Dashnaw-Tyrell’s obituary said the mother of three with 10 grandchildren worked as a dietary nutritionist for 25 years.
“She very much enjoyed flower gardening and music but her true love was her family, especially time with her grandchildren,” the obituary said.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]