Sixteen-year-old Shyanne Boyd pleaded guilty to two separate charges on Tuesday after being accused of stabbing and killing her mother, Shaylie Lynn Boyd, on July 29, 2022.
Judge Todd Plewe tentatively accepted the guilty plea, pending a presentencing investigation report and hearing. Boyd will learn whether her plea deal was accepted on Aug. 29 at her sentencing hearing at 9 a.m.
Boyd’s case was separated into two different cases Tuesday. She was charged as a juvenile with aggravated robbery and charged as an adult with second-degree murder. She pleaded guilty to both charges.
When asked by Plewe if she understood that she was pleading guilty as an adult to the second-degree murder of her mother, Boyd responded, “Yes.”
If Plewe accepts the plea deal, she could spend five years in the Department of Youth Corrections and seven years in the Youthful Offenders System, where her lawyer, Justin Bogan, said she would receive “trauma-informed treatment for troubled youth.”
Plewe said he will seek a recommendation from her current warden to determine whether she’s fit for the juvenile system. If Boyd didn’t successfully complete her seven years in the Youthful Offenders System, she could be incarcerated in the Department of Corrections for 20 years.
If her plea were rejected, she would be tried as an adult and face the possibility of 20 years in the state Department of Corrections.
She currently resides in a youth facility in Grand Junction.
Bogan and Shyanne Boyd’s family told contrasting stories about her life.
Bogan described the crime as a “tremendously tragic set of circumstances.”
“Shyanne Boyd is a troubled young child and has been troubled for a long time,” he said. He spoke of Boyd’s absentee father and mother “with her own constellation of emotional of psychological problems.”
He said Boyd was an unplanned pregnancy, born to parents who were unprepared to have a child, even alleging that Boyd’s parents had told her that she “should have been an abortion.”
He said he hoped a plea agreement could be reached in the case to help “strive for justice and strive for justice for children.”
Shyanne Boyd had been raised by her grandparents and was active in 4-H Club, and Bogan said she experienced trauma by not having a traditional relationship with her parents, saying that her anxiety and trauma were “ignored.”
When she was 14, Bogan said, Shyanne Boyd and her then-boyfriend entered a suicide pact and acquired a handgun. When they were approached by police, her boyfriend killed himself, and fragments from the bullet lodged in her jaw and brain, causing her to be flown to Denver for care.
Bogan said Boyd was a “suicide-pact survivor and a young lady still processing familial trauma.” He also encouraged Plewe to note that Boyd’s brain had still not fully developed and her brain injury from the failed suicide should be taken into account.
“Even for the most disturbing charges, even in loss of life, justice is achieved when we treat children like children,” Bogan said.
After Bogan spoke, Boyd’s family was given a chance to weigh in on the plea agreement and the case as a whole. Judge Plewe reminded her family that his job is to “make sure the law is being followed,” and that he would “not be swayed by emotional arguments.”
“I do want to hear from you to help me make a good decision,” he added.
Steve Boyd, Shyanne’s grandfather and Shaylie’s father, spoke first. He told Plewe that he had raised Shyanne since she was 2 years old and that she had been given every opportunity to choose a good path in life.
“Many would say she led a charmed childhood,” he said. “I don’t think she was ever an abused child by any means.”
He said coming from a broken family wasn’t an excuse for the choices she had made, saying that he also had divorced parents. “That doesn’t sit well with me,” he said.
“I’d like to see her tried as an adult and serve at least 20 years for what she’s done to her mother,” he said.
Tammy Samora, Shaylie’s aunt, said she had been a single mom of five kids for years, and every parent makes mistakes, but “not one of my kids would stab me while I was in bed.”
“This was plotted, this was planned, and it was cold-blooded murder. We need justice for Shaylie. She took something so special to all of us,” Samora said.
She also tearfully spoke of Shaylie Boyd’s other child, a 10-year-old son who now lives without his mother.
Martika Myer also demanded justice, saying that a light sentence could embolden other youths to believe they could get away with murder.
“Her trouble started when she met a troubled boy,” she said. “We all have choices; she chose her path. She needs to be punished. There is a 10-year-old boy that doesn’t have his mom. … Let us fight for Shaylie.”
Shaylie Boyd’s sisters-in-law Kiley Boyd and Breana Collins said Shaylie had been a “wonderful person” and “there was not a time she did not show unconditional love to her children.”
While her family spoke, Shyanne looked straight ahead, occasionally wiping her eyes with a tissue.
Online, the Boyd family expressed frustration with District Attorney Christian Hatfield, who has been on the case for two weeks after being selected to the 22nd Judicial Judicial District.
Plewe noted he had concerns about the contents of the resolution, but would “provisionally” accept Shyanne’s plea and move on to the next hearing, where he would be able to hear from her family again before making a final decision. A juvenile must have a hearing before being transferred to adult court.
“I don’t believe I can proceed … to try as an adult without another hearing as a stipulation,” he said.
Shyanne Boyd allegedly killed Shaylie Boyd on July 29, 2022. Shaylie Boyd’s body was found by friends about 8 p.m. in her home north of Cortez on County Road L.
Shyanne Boyd then fled in her family’s green Dodge Caravan and picked up a 16-year-old boy in Cortez before turning herself in on July 30 in Leupp, Arizona, 44 miles northeast of Flagstaff.
She is being held without bail. Her sentencing hearing is Aug. 29 at 9 a.m. and could last up to a full day.
