MONROE — The woman convicted of brutally killing her husband’s grandmother during an attempted theft recently at a rural Lafayette County home may spend the rest of her life in state prison for the crime.
During a sentencing hearing at the Lafayette County Courthouse on Monday, Shannon C. Bussan, 31, of Elizabeth, Illinois, was given a mandatory life term. After 22 years, she may be eligible for prolonged release, in accordance with Dane County Circuit Judge Mario White’s sentence.
Bussan will be able to ask the court to review her sentence at that point, when she will be 53, but that determination does not ensure an early release.
“The offense for which you were found guilty is serious,” White told Bussan, according to published reports. “There’s no getting around that…. I think 22 years is the right amount of time to understand that significance and strike a balance between your character and public safety requirements.”
On Nov. 8, a group of jurors from Lafayette County found Bussan guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the passing of Lynne I. Montgomery, 83, of Benton, her husband’s grandmother. A total of 31 witnesses testified throughout the trial, and jurors deliberated for four about hours before rendering its decision, according to reports and court records.
Montgomery was discovered unconscious in her Benton house on Feb. 27, 2023, with multiple blunt-force injuries to her upper body, according to the evidence shown at the trial. According to the prosecution, Bussan killed Montgomery as part of a scheme to steal money from a safe that Montgomery kept at home.
The prosecution — before a gallery reportedly packed with relatives and onlookers — sought the maximum sentence of life in prison without the eligibility of early release, citing the brutality of the crime, as evidenced by injuries found on Montgomery’s body at autopsy.
Meanwhile, the defense earlier implied that Bussan was framed for the crime — perhaps because of a lingering family dispute.
“This is something that a monster would do, and Shannon was not a monster,” defense attorney James O’Dell told the jury of 14, during the opening salvo in the trial.
According to trial testimony, Bussan’s blood and fingerprints were discovered on a locked safe belonging to Montgomery, and her DNA was discovered on at least one of Montgomery’s fingernails. Several handwritten notes that seemed to describe threats or attacks that Bussan made toward Montgomery were also found by authorities.
“Help, Shannon is hurting me, she dragged me to the basement to get in my safe,” read a note, one of two ostensibly left by the victim for relatives and authorities to find, expressing fear of Bussan.
Initially, authorities ruled the death accidental, and the victim’s body was sent to a funeral home for preparation. But the next day, relatives, aware that the heavy safe had been moved at one point and that the notes had been found, urged police to investigate the death at that home, in the 5000 block of Carr Factory Road.
It is unclear where she will serve out her lengthy sentence. Female prisoners in Wisconsin are housed in one of three facilities: Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a medium- and maximum-security facility in Fond du Lac, Milwaukee Women’s Correctional Center; or Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove.
According to court records, Bussan, a mother of five, was among those who addressed the court prior to sentencing. Calls to Bussan’s Madison attorney for comment Thursday — and to see if the defendant plans to appeal the sentence or conviction — were unsuccessful.