Jchandra Brown’s body was found hanging from a tree deep in the woods of Utah in May 2018. At first glance, the death of the 16-year-old appeared to be a tragic but straightforward case of suicide.
In a grocery bag near her body were a number of items; a receipt for the rope used to hang her, a suicide note written by Jchandra saying she wanted to die, and a cellphone which chillingly contained a ten-minute video recording of her dying.
The video was recorded by her so-called friend Tyerell Przybycien; he filmed her climbing into the noose, and when her body dropped, he’s heard to say, “thumbs up if you’re okay.” As the video ends with Brown’s death, Przybycien is heard to say, “I guess I’ll just leave this here now.”
It was Przybycien who approached police officers and suggested they might want to talk to him. He admitted to helping her commit suicide, arguing that she had wanted to die; therefore, he saw nothing wrong with his actions.
Detectives discovered that Przybycien had sent a text to a friend asking what they would do if a friend wanted to commit suicide. The friend responded by saying he would try to talk them out of it, but Przybycien then argued that he would help them commit suicide, “it’s like getting away with murder,” he wrote back.
Authorities discovered a later text from Przybycien, which read: “Bro it happened. I helped her do it too, and I feel so guilty.”
The police decided that Przybycien was responsible for Brown’s death, and began trying to prove that assisted suicide was tantamount to murder. This was an unprecedented case in the state of Utah.
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Police knew the pair, who had only known each other for four months and whose relationship could only be described as one of “loose friends, had spoken about suicide to each other. Police believed that without Tyerell, there would have been no suicide. He bought Brown the noose and provided her with the footstool; they used his car to get to the site of the hanging.
At a trial in October 2018 Przybycien, then 19-years-old pleaded guilty to first-degree felony child abuse homicide, he also pleaded guilty to an additional child pornography charge. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
See the details of the case on 48 Hours on ID at 8/7c Investigation Discovery.