A Wisconsin woman is facing life behind bars after a jury found her guilty of lacing her friend’s water with eye drops and stealing almost $300,000 from her in 2018.
The Waukesha County jury convicted Jessy Kurczewski, 39, of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of felony theft Tuesday.
Police found Lynn Hernan, a woman in her 60s, dead in her recliner amidst a large amount of crushed medication on her chest and a plate directly to the left of her with a large amount of what appeared to be crushed up medication still on the plate.
Police had first completed a wellness check following a 911 call from Kurczewski describing her friend as unconscious and not breathing on October 3, 2018.
Police first suspected that Hernan had died of an overdose, but three months later, the Waukesha County medical examiner determined that she had died from a fatal dose of Tetrahydrozoline, the main ingredient in eyedrops.
After being arrested in the summer of 2019, Kurczewski switched up her story several different times while recalling what happened to police.
Kurczewski claimed Hernan was known for having large amounts of eye drops on her and that she purchased them in great volume. She claimed Hernan would have bottles and boxes from eye drops all over her residence.
Kurczewski also told police that Hernan staged her own suicide with the crushed pills and that she had seen Hernan make herself a cocktail of Visine and vodka just one day before her death. Hernan had been trying to kill herself with the cocktail and would try different doses in water bottles or vodka to find the lethal dosage.
And then, Kurczewski’s story changed yet again, according to investigators who alleged in the complaint that the woman then said she had in fact given Hernan a water bottle containing six bottles of Visine at the woman’s behest, according to the complaint. Kurczewski also claimed she gave her friend the deadly drink only after arguing for one hour about how much she didn’t want to do it.
Law enforcement’s continued investigation into Kurczewski’s finances. They discovered that she had transferred more than $100,000 of Hernan’s savings into her own account and that her spending had shot up as she had gotten closer to the older woman.
During her murder trial prosecutors argued that “Lynn Hernan became worth more dead than alive” to Kurczewski.
“The defendant betrayed Lynn out of greed,” Waukesha County Deputy District Attorney Abbey Nickolie said after the verdict. “This case highlighted the financial vulnerability of the victim and what a person would do to get what they want.”
During opening statements in October, one of Kurczewski’s lawyers, Pablo Galaviz, told the jury that Hernan’s death could easily be explained by her penchant for eye drops and that Kurczewski was in no way tied to her death.
Kurczewski’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 7, per the AP. The homicide conviction carries a mandatory life sentence.
