Was man insane when he stabbed mother to death? Judge to announce decision Sept. 25

A Kane County judge will decide Sept. 25 whether a South Elgin man was insane when he stabbed his mother to death.

Judge John Barsanti heard closing arguments Monday in the bench trial of Michal Wybraniec.

Wybraniec is accused of stabbing his mother, Beata Wybraniec, 50 times inside and out of the home they shared on April 16, 2023.

Prosecutors argued Wybraniec, 32, should be found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of armed violence. In the alternative, they asked Barsanti to find Wybraniec guilty but mentally ill.

“The truth is that the defendant was fed up (with his mother). ‘No money. Stop taking drugs. Take your meds.’ This is what the argument was about,” assistant state’s attorney David Belshan said Monday.

On a video of a police interview, Wybraniec said his mother tried to get him to take medication he did not want to take, that she was rude, that she yelled at him and tried to emasculate him.

Wybraniec’s attorney argued he was insane at the time of the offense, and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

“What we have here is (Wybraniec’s) statements and behavior that is a result of active psychosis,” assistant public defender Brenda Willett said. He had been diagnosed in 2017 with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorder. Willett on the first day of the trial said Wybraniec had stopped taking medications prescribed to treat those conditions. He was hospitalized for almost two weeks in March 2023.

Both sides agreed Wybraniec was mentally ill at the time of the attack. The question is whether he was insane and so could not appreciate the criminality of his actions.

Willett had said during opening arguments that a psychologist who evaluated Wybraniec determined Wybraniec had delusions about Beata being an actor in the “deep state,” employed by a shadow government and abusing him, including on a mock reality television show. He also spoke about warlords.

A forensic psychiatrist hired by the prosecutors testified Friday that she did not believe Wybraniec was insane in the moment.

“He was not asking for money from the ‘state actor’ or a warlord. He was asking his mother for $15 for body wash and, yes, for money. To me, at that time, his belief was he was asking his mother,” Dr. Angeline Stanislaus said.

“He wanted to kill his mother because he perceived her to be emotionally abusive, not because he did not believe she was his mother or working for criminal bosses or because she was going to rape him.”

The attack began in their home. Beata then ran outside, chased by Wybraniec, who continued to stab her until a passerby knocked Wybraniec off her with his pickup truck, according to authorities.