Forbidden young love ends with a mother's violent murder

As Steven Colver's murder trial finally gets under way, his attorney, Dain Weiner, is ready and eager to argue that the wrong person is on trial.

"He doesn't have a violent bone in his body," said Weiner.

But Tylar Witt, Colver's former lover and self-confessed accomplice in the planning of her mother's murder, tells prosecutors a different story. She outlines her gruesome version of the killing. She says she let Steven into the house and that he was armed with a chef's knife.

"...Tylar went to the kitchen, got out her own knife...and the two walked very quietly up the stairs..." said prosecutor Lisette Suder.

It was late at night and Joanne was asleep.

"They turn into Joanne's room. He walks ahead, and just as he enters in, Tylar sees him making practice motions as he's heading towards the bed," Suder continued. "At that point, Tylar fell to the fetal position...right there at the opening of the door, covered her ears...He began to stab Joanne..."

Prosecutors believe her testimony, saying it is corroborated by other evidence. Tylar's lawyer, Mark Ralphs, also says she passed a polygraph test, helping to prove she did not stab her mother.

"Who decided that Joanne Witt had to die?" Schlesinger asked Marks.

"Well, Tylar...indicated she could not remember whether it was initially her idea or...Steven's idea," he replied.

"She couldn't remember? How do you not remember whose idea it is to kill your mother?"

"I don't know," Marks said. "...it had been more than two years..."

"But counselor, it's the murder of her mother."

"I understand."

But Tylar has other credibility problems. One psychologist called her sociopathic. And on the stand, she testified she has two super beings living inside her: An angel named Alex and a demon named Toby. The demon, she says, takes control of her in times of stress.

"...I think that has a great significance," Weiner said. "It gives a whole other personality, an aggressive, violent personality inside Tylar..."

"It had nothing to do with the murder," Suder said. "It's simply a defense attorney asking questions, trying to show flaws in Tylar's character."

And if jurors have trouble with Tylar, prosecutors have DNA evidence to offer. It was found on Joanne's body and under her fingernails.

"...when there is DNA under the fingernails, with the defensive wounds...it is very likely that the DNA comes from Joanne trying to fight her attacker," explained Suder.

There was not enough DNA to identify anyone, but there was enough to prove it came from a male.

"It really narrows it," Suder said. "...Steven Colver's a male. There's only one male we're looking at."

Steven Colver's trial lasted four weeks, but it took jurors took less than four hours to reach a verdict.

What does it mean that it went so quickly? It depends whose side you're on.

"I think that's not a good sign," said Dain Weiner. "I've always been of the opinion that the longer they take, the better..."

Weiner believes his young client is moments away from becoming a convicted murderer.

"You braced your client for that?" Schlesinger asked Weiner.

"We discussed it... It's a tense moment...a tense moment..." Weiner said of waiting for the verdict.

Steven Colver, quietly sobbing at the defense table, is understandably shaken by the verdict: Guilty. He will end up in prison for the rest of his life.

For reasons they would not discuss, prosecutors decided not to ask for the death penalty.

His mother, Jan, is still convinced he's innocent.

"...I just felt the air leave my lungs," she said. "I just wanted somebody to wake me up from the nightmare."

For a crime this brutal, the judge has no other choice: "The defendant shall be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole."

Tylar Witt -- the girl Steven Colver planned to spend eternity with -- gets her reward for testifying against him. She's allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and gets 15 years to life.

"Are you doing it freely, voluntarily, 'cause it's what you want to do?" Suder asked Tyler in court.

"Yes," she replied.

"This was a brutal murder," the judge said addressing Tylar. "The court has seen no emotion or even remorse for the loss of your mother...I'm sorry for you, Miss Witt, because the person who loved you most in this world and without reservation is gone."

There is enough heartbreak in this case to go around. And the last great tragedy is that it all started because of a stupid miscalculation. Lisette Suder says Tylar and Steven murdered Joanne Witt because they feared he would be imprisoned for a long time for committing statutory rape.

"It would have been a misdemeanor and the maximum that he could have received was a year in the County Jail. Reality is he probably wouldn't have gotten any jail time," Suder told Schlesinger.

"Really? So these kids thought it was the end of the world and..."

"And it really wasn't"

But it is now the end of the free world for Steven Colver. It's the outcome Norb and Judi Witt hoped for. Of course, there's no satisfaction... no sense of victory for two people who lost a daughter and a granddaughter.

"I really wonder how we've gotten through it. I really, really do," Judi said. "You just know that you can give up or you keep going."

"What's your choice?" added Norb.

Life has gone on for the Witts. And Norb, who once turned his back on Tylar, has now started to soften on the subject of his now 17-year-old granddaughter.

"You look at this little girl and then you look at the person that she is now. Do you wonder what happened to this little girl who you used to bounce around on your knee?"

"Yes! Of course," Norb replied. "All the time," said Judi.

For years, Norb could not bring himself to see Tylar. But finally, after the trial, he did.

"You heard the clanking of metal doors and then the door opened and she came in very meekly...and said, 'Hi Pappa.' She came over and hugged me and started sobbing," said Norb.

Asked if he cried, Norb said, "I don't remember. But I held her pretty tight. ...We just talked and I see some remorse."

It is not easy to reconnect. And Norb isn't sure, after everything that has happened, how close he can be to his granddaughter who helped murder his daughter.

"Have you forgiven her?" Schlesinger asked.

"No, I haven't forgiven her at this point," Norb replied.

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know. Probably deep inside I do, but I don't know if it's possible...I don't know...I really don't know. And I don't think Judi does either."

Tylar Witt is not eligible for parole until 2024; She will be 29 years old.

Steven Colver is appealing his conviction.

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[Verascity]

DNA from a male under the slaughtered woman's nails and Steven's mom still can't believe he held the knife.
Tyler's diary entries longing for her mother to die and her conspiracy with Steven and she only gets a few years in prison.
The world would be a better place if both these horrid, twisted brats never got out of prison.

[WakeUpPeople001]

1. This article is full of writing errors. Just one example: They "turned down the air conditioning to help preserve the body". Huh?

2. The real culprit in this case is Child Protective Services (CPS). They overreacted initially, got it right later, but the damage had already been done.

[hypnotoad72]

Even those red and green squiggles in Microsoft Word ensured that the need for editors would be made obsolete.

Thanks for crowdsourcing the work.

[WakeUpPeople001]

1. This article is full of writing errors. Just one example: They "turned down the air conditioning to help preserve the body". Huh?

2. The real culprit in this case is Child Protective Services (CPS). They overreacted initially, got it right later, but the damage had already been done.

[knewsteerrrrr]

His mother, Jan, is still convinced he's innocent."

Jan is a delusional half-wit, I'm glad the jury had sense and little Mr Colver will spend the rest of his days behind bars.

[WakeUpPeople001]

1. This article is full of writing errors. Just one example: They "turned down the air conditioning to help preserve the body". Huh?

2. The real culprit in this case is Child Protective Services (CPS). They overreacted initially, got it right later, but the damage had already been done.

[djseavy]

It's just as much a double standard as what we parents face concerning disciplining our kids. I have two very respectful boy, now grown, and only once did I have to give them a good crack on the butt. Some may say I "abused" them. I see how they are today, and I have no guilt whatsoever. I'd rather be criticized for wacking them once on the butt, than to be visiting them in prison. At 14, however, unless the "child" is mentally disabled, kids know murder is patently wrong. It's not a youthful misjudgement - it was a cold and calculated murder. It does not take a solid adult mentality to understand that killing someone is not only immoral, it's obviously illegal. I don't buy into the idea that it was her lack of maturity that led to this brutal act. She's a con artist and if she isn't straightened out in prison - she will always be a con artist.

[OmegaWolf747]

The real cause of crimes like this is a society that doesn't allow people to grow up when they're biologically ready to. If Tylar and Steven had been allowed to be together, instead of being treated like children, it never would have gotten to the point where they felt like they had to kill Tylar's mother and then themselves.

[jaimieandlisa]

sounds like you like little girls, rofl.

[jeffreyfreeman]

I agree. Especially in this case. There is something not right with a mother that brings strangers into a private family affair to threaten a boy. Police probably played F-around too. Whomever gave the two the idea he was going to jail for 20 years should have been in that court as well defending the negligent actions that were partly responsible for placing the kids in their mental state. Terrible loss that so easily, I believe, could have been avoid through healthy communication. Stop the madness.

Jeffrey Freeman

[craigzz]

I simply cannot agree with this verdict, there seems to be more to suggest matricide, than that of this young man having committed the murder. It would seem to me, his involvment began after the fact, and he was in fact, telling the true course of events which occured.
Again it seems, a case in which 'dodgy deals' with prosecuters, can often bring about convictions which may not be sound.

[pegatil]

I don't think I could ever talk to the child of my child if I were the grandparent. The sweet little granddaughter no longer exists. She became a cold, manipulative sneak who plotted her mother's death. The payback will be that one day she will get married and have a child of her own. She will have an epiphany and see herself for what she is. Sooner or later you must face the truth. What she did to her mother will haunt her into old age. The funny thing about who we are in this life is that truth prevails in the end. You may be able to fool those around you but when you go to bed at night you must face the truth. You cannot hide from it when all you have is the dark and the silence.

[debbie1120]

They shouldnt release her ever. Stay in jail where you belong. You may not have stabbed your mother but you are just as guilty as Steven is.

[bobkat258]

I can't even read this beyond the first page. Mom lets 19 year old move in with a 14 year old in the house and they're doing drugs and know it. So stupid, there are no words.