A jury on Tuesday convicted a woman of killing her friend with a deadly dose of eyedrops, according to multiple reports.
The verdict came down after jurors deliberated for about 11 hours over two days, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Jessy Kurczewski, 39, was found guilty of one count of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of theft of movable property less than $100,000 but more than $10,000, according to the newspaper.
Kurczewski earlier told investigators that she gave Lynn Hernan a water bottle filled with six bottles of Visine in 2018, The Associated Press reported, citing a criminal complaint. She told authorities who said it looked like Hernan’s death had been staged to look like a suicide that Hernan must have staged it to look that way, according to the complaint.
The 62-year-old hairdresser was found dead in her condo in October 2018 with crushed medication on her chest, according to WITI and the AP.
Prosecutors argued that Hernan died from the poisoning after tetrahydrozoline — a chemical found in Visine — was found in her system, the Journal Sentinel reported.
Defense attorneys claimed that Hernan had a history of drug use and was suicidal, pointing to medical records to argue that she died from an overdose of a combination of drugs, WBAY-TV reported.
Prosecutors said Kurczewski acted as Hernan’s caregiver and that she was one of only two people named in the older woman’s will, according to WTMJ-TV. Detectives determined that Kurczewski also stole $290,000 from Hernan, the AP reported.
Kurczewski will be sentenced in December, according to the Journal Sentinel. She faces a mandatory life sentence for the homicide conviction.
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