Defendant Took Photo With Victim’s Severed Head
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx man has been
sentenced to the maximum of 25 years-to-life in prison for killing his mother and dissecting her
body.
District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant fatally stabbed his mother and then
chillingly took photos with her mutilated corpse. A jury found him guilty of murder for these
horrific acts and now he will serve the maximum sentence in prison.”
District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Bahsid McLean, 26, of 645 Westchester
Avenue, was sentenced today, December 5, 2016, to 25 years-to-life in prison for the murder, to
run consecutively with 1 1/3 to four years for the dissection, by New York Court of Claims
Justice Jeanette Rodriguez-Morick. McLean was convicted by a jury on November 4, 2016 of
second-degree Murder and one count of Public Health Law 4210-A (Unlawful dissection of the
body of a human being) after a nearly month-long trial.
According to trial testimony, on February 25, 2013, McLean stabbed his mother, Tanya
Byrd, 45, to death in her Morrisania apartment. He proceeded to dissect Byrd’s body and took a
“selfie” photo with her severed head. He discarded her remains in garbage bags inside suitcases,
which he dumped in his neighborhood after telling a friend he wanted to take the trash out.
The case was investigated and prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Aaron Kaplan,
Deputy Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau, and Amy Omens, under the supervision of
Amy Litwin, Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau.
