Jessy Kurczewski, Wisconsin woman found guilty of fatally poisoning long time friend, Lynn Hernan and stealing $300,000 from victim. Defendant had tried to make victim’s death look like an overdose death.
A Wisconsin woman was on Tuesday found guilty of poisoning her disabled ‘friend’ with eye drops and stealing nearly $300,000 from her.
A jury deliberated for seven hours on Monday and another four hours Tuesday morning before finding that Jessy Kurczewski, 39, guilty of killing beautician Lynn Hernan in 2018 and staging the scene to look like a suicide, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
During trial deliberations, Kurczewski, admitted to dumping six bottles of Visine into a water bottle which she then gave to Hernan — claiming Hernan was suicidal and requested the tainted water. The jury didn’t buy the defendant’s account and found her guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of theft in connection to her death, FOX6 reported.
Draining victim’s bank account
Hernan’s death was staged as an overdose, after the victim was found dead with crushed medications on her chest and prescription medications nearby. An autopsy determined that she died from tetrahydrozoline poisoning — an eye decongestant found in over-the-counter eyedrops — and there was too much of the drug in Hernan’s system to have come from using it in her eyes.
While Kurczewski appeared to be a caring friend, reportedly checking on Hernan daily, she was actually opening credit cards in the dead woman’s name and draining her bank account.
‘She didn’t spend the day worried about Lynn. She was opening a JC Penney account in Lynn’s name, and she was using other accounts of Lynn to go shopping, do some online shopping, while she knew she just had given Lynn poison,’ Waukesha County Asst. District Attorney Randy Sitzberger said, according to WISN 12 News.
‘Lynn Hernan became worth more dead than alive to Jessy Kurczewski,’ he added.
Kurczewski was arrested nearly a year after Hernan’s death when investigators discovered she had stolen $290,000 from her.
She maxed out her own credit cards and suspiciously received several large checks — including one for over $130,000 — from Hernan before the killing, prosecutors said.
‘Lynn gave Jessy money all the time because she wanted to,’ her defense attorney Donna Kuchler said, according to the Sentinel. ‘Giving money to Jessy made her happy. Jessy was like her daughter.’
Kurczewski faces mandatory life in prison for the homicide charge and will be sentenced on Dec. 7.
