Not guilty by mental defect in fatal highway shooting of Buffalo Grove woman
A Milwaukee-area man will spend 40 years in a state institution after a judge Monday ruled him not guilty by reason of mental defect for the deadly May 2016 shooting of a Buffalo Grove woman on a Wisconsin interstate.
The ruling came after Zachary T. Hays, 21, appeared in court and admitted to killing Tracy Czaczkowski, a 44-year-old mother of two fatally shot while she and her family were driving home from a trip to the Wisconsin Dells.
Authorities said Hays fired three shots at Czaczkowski's car as she, her husband and two young children passed him along Interstate 90/94 near Baraboo, Wisconsin, on May 1, 2016. One of the shots struck Czaczkowski in the neck.
The not guilty finding came during a hearing at which Czaczkowski's widower, Greg Czaczkowski, took the stand. He glared at Hays for much of his statement. Hays didn't return his stare except when occasionally called out by name.
“My children lost their mother in the most horrible way, and all while they watched,” Greg Czaczkowski said. “I relive that moment 10 times a day, every day. I have a hole in my heart that will never heal. I will never forget your face — ever — and what you did to our family.”
He also spoke of what's kept him going since, including memories of the strangers who brought his children to the hospital in Madison while he rode in the ambulance with his wife.
“There's more good than bad in the world,” he said. “I said that at the wake, I said that at the funeral.”
Reading from the reports of four doctors who agreed on the mental defect diagnosis, Judge Michael Screnock said Hays' state of mind was deteriorating at the time of the shooting, leading him to believe he was being hunted by the FBI, Freemasons and Illuminati. He also suffered from a delusion that he'd discovered a secret FBI base.
Sauk County District Attorney Kevin Calkins said he'd never before seen four psychiatric evaluations agree as much. When he'd first heard about the shooting and that Czaczkowksi's husband was a DEA agent, he presumed the family had been targeted.
“I thought there was a reason for what happened,” Calkins said. “But as we've since learned, the only reason was no reason at all. Mr. Hays was living out a story in his head.”
Screnock expressed deep sympathy for the Czaczkowski family but said imposing the maximum commitment period of 40 years was the most he could do. If Hays had been convicted, he could have been incarcerated for 97.5 years.
“We're not here to punish Mr. Hays in the classic sense,” Screnock said. “I don't know whether today's proceedings will bring any degree of closure to Tracy's family. I suspect not.”
Court documents said Hays, of West Allis, was paranoid about vehicles with tinted windows — the apparent reason he fired at the Czaczkowskis' BMW sedan.
Police said that after shooting Czaczkowski, Hays fired on other vehicles as he led police on a chase down the interstate. The pursuit ended in Dane County, north of Madison, after police placed a spike strip across the road, authorities said.
Police said Hays then got out of the vehicle and walked toward officers with a handgun. After he ignored their commands to stop, the officers shot him, police said.
Hays continues to face a first-degree reckless homicide charge in the death of his neighbor, 42-year-old Gabriel Sanchez, the same morning of the interstate shooting. A competency evaluation ordered in that case found Hays could be diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic spectrum disorder.
He is scheduled to face trial in that case July 5.