Jarrod Wyatt

In short
On 21 March 2010 in Requa, California, MMA fighter Jarrod Wyatt, under the influence of hallucinogenic mushroom tea, killed and mutilated his friend and training partner Taylor Powell, 21, believing he was Satan. In 2012 he was sentenced to 47 years in prison.

On 21 March 2010, after answering a call from someone reporting a stabbing, police went to a house in Requa, California. The scene the officers found was worthy of a horror film. Jarrod Wyatt was standing naked and covered in blood in front of the body of his friend Taylor Powell. Powell had a gash across his chest and the skin of his face had been torn off. Wyatt was arrested along with his ex-girlfriend, Billy Jo Bailey, who was in the bedroom. Both were in an altered state and it would take a while to put together the pieces of this terrible murder.

Twenty-six-year-old Wyatt was passionate about mixed martial arts (MMA) and often trained with his friend Taylor Powell, 21. One day the two, together with Wyatt’s ex-girlfriend and another friend, Justin Davis, decided to spend an evening together. The three young men brewed a hallucinogenic mushroom tea and drank it, while Bailey only tasted it, urged on by Davis. The effects soon kicked in. Davis decided to leave, but Wyatt tried to stop him, telling him that a giant wave was about to hit the town and even throwing himself onto his car, but in the end Davis left. At that point Wyatt started arguing with Powell and the two fought on the kitchen floor. Some time later Davis came back to pick up the dog he had left at his friends’ house, and that’s when he heard screams coming from inside. He heard someone shouting about having to “cut off a tattoo”, and that’s when he called the police.

The murder

From the statements of those present, it emerged that because of the hallucinogens Wyatt was convinced the world was ending and that he was part of a battle between God and Satan. He was also convinced that Powell was Satan, and that is why he killed him. Wyatt cut out Powell’s tongue and then tore the skin off his face, also gouging out an eye. Not content, he cut open his friend’s chest with a knife or scissors and then ripped out his heart. All of this while Powell was still alive. According to the autopsy, the young man bled to death after his heart was torn out. Thinking Satan was not yet dead, Wyatt burned the heart in a wood stove.

The sentence

Wyatt was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated mayhem and torture, and faced the death penalty. His lawyer built the defence on the psychosis triggered by the mushrooms, arguing that his client “was trying to silence the devil”, and sought an insanity ruling. In the end, on 6 September 2012, Wyatt accepted a plea deal and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder involving mayhem. On 4 October 2012 the Del Norte County court sentenced him to 47 years in prison, with no chance of parole before 2062. During the hearing Taylor’s family and friends spoke in court about the void his death had left.

Taylor was 21 and trusted Wyatt, who he trained with. He was killed by a friend in the grip of delirium, on a night that was supposed to be just an evening among friends.

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