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The death of a child, regardless of the cause or their age, is overwhelmingly devastating to parents, who can never be fully prepared for their child to die before them. Outliving a child is unnatural, but sadly, this was the reality for Norb & Judi Witt. Not only had they unexpectedly lost their child, but she died as a result of a violent homicide.
It all began with a phone call on Monday, June 15, 2009, when their 47-year-old daughter’s boss explained that Joanne Witt hadn’t come in to work, something that was absolutely out of character for since she always called in if she wasn’t able to make it in. He wondered if they had heard from her, but they hadn’t. Even more alarming, she also hadn’t come into work three days earlier on Friday, June 12.
Norb & Judi were in the midst of enjoying life together in their retirement, regularly traveling around the country in a top-of-the-line RV. When they received this phone call, they had only just come home from a two month trip to their El Dorado Hills, California home.
Joanne’s boss was so concerned about her absence on Friday that he’d personally gone to her house to check on her, but when he knocked, no one answered. Joanne was a single mom with a teenager daughter, but no one seemed to be home so he left. When she didn’t come in or call again on Monday, he contacted the police & requested a welfare check.
In the meantime, Norb told his daughter’s boss that since they lived only two miles away, they were heading over to Joanne’s house. He explained that officers were already there & she wasn’t answering the door.
When officers arrived at Joanne’s house & knocked, once again, there was no answer. All of the doors & windows were locked & there was no sign of forced entry or obvious signs of foul play. Regardless, they were concerned since Joanne’s car was in the garage.
Not only were they terribly worried about their daughter’s well-being, but they hadn’t heard from their granddaughter, Joanne’s daughter, Tylar. Only days earlier, Joanne confided in them that she & Tylar had been having issues in their relationship.
Joanne Witt was born on January 25, 1962 & since her dad was a successful business man, she grew up in a financially stable household. Joanne was a highly intelligent girl who earned a master’s degree from the University of California in metallurgy or the study of the physical & chemical behavior of metallic elements.
After graduation, she secured a job with IBM as an engineer & then later worked for the Department of Transportation. Despite her professional successes, Joanne felt something was missing in her life as she always dreamt of having a child & becoming a mother. At 32-years-old, she found out that she was pregnant with a baby girl & her life truly seemed to be coming together.
It’s unclear who the father of Joanne’s baby girl was, but she knew she would be raising her daughter as a single parent. Since she had a strong support system of family & friends, especially her dad & brother, she knew she’d have help as well as strong male role models in her daughter’s life.
On November 18, 1994, Tyler Witt was born & it was immediately clear that Joanne was meant to be a mom. However, she had to learn how to now balance her professional life with her life as the sole caregiver to her baby. With the help of her family, she was able to raise Tylar in an upscale gated community.
Things were not entirely without issue as Joanne actually lost custody of Tylar for six months when she was 5-years-old. According to an ABC news interview with Joanne’s aunt, Mary Witt, Tylar’s preschool teacher noticed suspicious bruising on her face & body & contacted authorities.
They learned that when Joanne was driving her daughter home from school, Tylar had been screaming & since Joanne wasn’t able to concentrate, she flew into a rage. She pulled her daughter out of the car, hit her with a belt & slapped her. The following day, when her teacher noticed the red mark on the little girl’s face, Child Protective Services became involved & Tylar was taken away. She was initially placed in foster care for about a month until Norb & Judi obtained temporary custody. Tylar stayed with her grandparents while her mom completed court-ordered anger management & parenting classes.
After this horrific event, Joanne vowed never to allow herself to lose control ever again, something that she stuck to. Friends indicated that Joanne was almost afraid to discipline her daughter at all because she feared Tylar would report her to CPS. This lack of discipline & consequences backfired because as Tylar began to grow up, she started getting into trouble at school & even ran away twice.
Since Tylar was Joanne’s entire world, she tried to give her everything that she could, from acting classes to horse riding lessons to adventurous sight-seeing vacations. In the months before her death, Joanne was finally starting to crack down & implement more rules which led to heated arguments.
According to Tylar, these fights were fueled by her mom’s secret drinking problem; she claimed that when her mother was drunk, she would beat her. However, friends say this was absolutely not the truth & authorities agree that there was no proof to support these accusations.
When Norb & Judi raced over to their daughter’s house, two sheriff’s deputies were there, walking around the perimeter of the home. Norb told them that he had a key & while he unlocked the door, the officers ordered them to stay outside while they went in.
As officers made their way into the house, all was quiet & when they reached Joanne’s bedroom, they tragically found her lying on her bed, partially covered with a blanket. When they moved the blanket away, they immediately saw that her body was covered in blood as was the bedding & pillows & there was a bloody outline of a knife left on the bed. She had been repeatedly stabbed with the majority of the wounds localized to her neck & shoulders as well as a deep slash wound across her neck.
According to the medical examiner, who conducted Joanne’s autopsy, she had been stabbed about 20 times in addition to the slash wound across her neck that was so severe, it had nearly decapitated her. Some of the stab wounds were so forceful that some of her bones had even fractured. The defensive wounds on her body made it clear that she had fought hard for her life until the bitter end.
Because the rest of the house showed no signs of a burglary, it was clear that this was a very personal, targeted attack rather than a robbery gone wrong.
Through their tremendous grief of learning that their daughter had been murdered in her home, Norb & Judy were immediately concerned for the safety & wellbeing of their 14-year-old granddaughter. They immediately feared that Tylar had been kidnapped since she wasn’t in the house & at that point, her whereabouts were unknown.
Investigators were aware that only a couple of weeks earlier, Joanne had filed a police report indicating that Tylar had been sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old named Steven Colver. Steven was actually Tylar’s boyfriend, but because of the age difference & the fact that her daughter was only 14, when Joanne learned of their relationship & the fact that they were sexually active, she was understandably concerned.
Tensions had been at an all time high between Joanne & Tylar & only one month earlier, Tylar called 911 pretending to be her mom. She told the dispatcher that her daughter was out of control & needed to be taken away. It was Tylar’s goal to be taken away by the sheriff, something that painted the picture of a deeply troubled mother-daughter relationship as Tylar wanted to be anywhere but at home.
When officers arrived, they noted bruising to Joanne’s arms & a cut on her chin. Tylar was taken to juvenile hall, but because Joanne refused to press charges, she was released within hours & sent back home. Tylar’s friends were very well aware that her relationship with her mom was very volatile as they often heard her speak disparagingly about her or say, I wish she were dead.
When Tylar was only 12-years-old, she loved spending time at a local teen center where kids who were much older than her frequented, many around 16 & 17-years-old. This was a point of contention between Tylar & her mom, who worried about her daughter hanging around with kids so much older. The older kids at the center did admit that Tylar seemed far more mature than 12.
By the time Tylar was 14, many of her friends had outgrown the teen center & were now gathering at local coffee shops. This was how she crossed paths with 19-year-old Steven Colvert, who went by the nickname Boston. Those in his circle all went by their given nickname. He wore black, Goth-style clothing & attended community college in conjunction with working. The two met in December 2008, one month after Tylar turned fourteen.
Tylar felt that Steven was a great listener & immediately hit it off with the much older boy, but it wasn’t until two months later, in February 2009, when their relationship first became romantic & then sexual. Tylar was enamored with her new love & it seemed that she was willing to do anything to keep him happy.
While Steven was in college, he fell into a cycle of partying that often included cocaine, marijuana & ecstacy. Meanwhile, Tylar was only a freshman in high school.
A few weeks after they met, at a time when their chemistry was building, but they were only friends, Steven told Tylar that he needed a place to live. Tylar convinced her mom to rent a room to him in their home after she explained that they had a brother/sister relationship. To be sure that her mom believed they were only friends, she lied & told her that Steven was gay. When Joanne agreed to let him move in, family members & friends were very skeptical & concerned.
Despite all of the animosity between, Joanne often said yes to Tylar’s requests or demands in an attempt to keep the peace within the household. She tried to see the positive in allowing Steven to stay in their home; he was contributing $500 a month toward the mortgage & also helping Tylar with her homework.
Steven initially seemed like the perfect housemate; he always cleaned up after himself & helped around the house. However, within a month of their arrangement, Joanne began to suspect that something was going on between Steven & Tylar.
On May 14, 2009, when she came home from work, Tylar wasn’t in her room or any other common area of the house. When she approached Steven’s door, she heard movement on the other side & after she knocked, he opened it only a crack. Joanne was able to see that he was semi-nude & when she asked if he knew where Tylar was, he said he didn’t, but just then, she noticed movement behind him & saw that his closet was slightly ajar. After Joanne pushed past him & yanked the closet door open, she found her 14-year-old child crouched down, hiding while fully nude.
Joanne felt betrayed & absolutely sickened as she screamed at Steven to get out of her house immediately. When he refused to leave, she called two of her male coworkers who helped her get him out. They gathered all of his belongings & dumped them outside.
Joanne knew that Steven was guilty of statutory rape since Tylar was a minor so she told him that if he contacted her daughter again, she would report him to the police. Meanwhile, one of her male colleagues threatened to do more than that. Regardless, he seemed completely unphased & unbeknownst to Joanne, he ended up sneaking back into her home twenty times after that day when she was either at work or sleeping.
When Joanne reported Steven to authorities, Tylar denied everything & told them that her mom made the story up. She continued to maintain that Steven was like an older brother to her, someone she looked up to. When they confronted her about her mom’s version of events of finding her hiding, naked in his closet, Tylar said this was a lie that she was telling so she had an excuse to kick Steven out. Since there was no evidence & Tylar wasn’t cooperating, there was no case.
Joanne was adamant that Steven’s relationship with her daughter was inappropriate & the sheriff agreed to dig deeper. When he spoke with Steven on the phone, he directly asked him if he had ever had sex with Tylar & he said he hadn’t. Like Tylar, he described their relationship as a brother/sister one.
Steven told the detective that he was well aware that Tylar was only 14 which would make it a crime to have sex with her; he said that Joanne’s accusations were scaring him since he didn’t want to get into trouble for something he hadn’t done. Once again, the detective couldn’t proceed since there was no evidence to prove anything.
Moving forward to June 10, five days before Joanne was found murdered in her bed, she discovered her daughter’s diary that gave her all the proof she needed, written in Tylar’s own handwriting. Joanne was horrified as she read entry after entry written by her daughter, detailing her sexual encounters with Steven that outlined where they’d had sex & in what positions.
Joanne immediately took the diary to the police station & later confronted her daughter, who was livid & felt that her mom had betrayed her. Joanne was unbothered with this reaction & only concerned for her daughter’s wellbeing. She knew that Steven was manipulating her much younger daughter, taking advantage of her & exposing her to drug use & experiences that were completely inappropriate for a 14-year-old.
Tylar was devastated by the thought that Steven could potentially go to prison for their relationship & she stormed out of the house to tell him what her mom had done. As with Tylar, Steven was convinced that he would face time in prison once detectives read her diary.
Later that night when things seemed to calm down, Joanne had a talk with her daughter & told her that although she was sorry for invading her privacy, she only wanted to protect her.
Now, five days later, Norb & Judi were learning this shocking information in the wake of their daughter’s horrific murder. They knew that getting justice for their daughter would mean turning their backs on their 14-year-old granddaughter. But, they knew that if Tylar & Steven were responsible for Joanne’s death, regardless of the fact that she was their family, it was what they needed to do.
Although detectives had yet to track down Tylar or Steven, they felt certain that they were responsible for Joanne’s murder & rather than the teen being abducted, she was likely on the run with her boyfriend.
They started by putting out a BOLO for Steven’s car & only 24 hours after they discovered Joanne’s body, they got a hit. They found his car on June 16 after it had been abandoned at an impound lot in San Francisco. Inside, they came across Steven’s journal that detailed his hate for Joanne & how she was standing in the way of what he wanted & because of that, he needed to get rid of her.
One entry read, I love Tylar. She’s my goddess. I love her more than anyone could ever imagine. I’d go to hell for her – if it means being with her, I don’t care.
Detectives hoped that someone within Steven’s circle of friends would have information about his whereabouts. When they spoke with a boy named Matthew, they learned that he confessed to killing Joanne one day after her murder. He went as far as to go into the trunk of his car & show him the bloody knife. In addition to Matthew, he confessed the crime to another close friend as well.
Matthew told investigators that Steven dyed his previously blond hair to black so he could go unrecognized by authorities & that Tylar was willingly with him. He elaborated that she was in on the whole plan that involved murdering her mom, fleeing to San Francisco & in a nod to Romeo & Juliet, they would die together on their three month & three week anniversary. Tylar had also altered her hair color from natural blond to a deep shade of brown.
After they murdered Joanne the friends they hung out with described the couple as happy, kissing & holding hands & seemingly living their best lives.
Investigators believed that Joanne had been killed on Thursday night, June 11, 2009 & the search for the couple was happening nearly a week later. They wondered if by this time, they had already gone through with their Romeo & Juliet-style suicide pact. When they checked both Joanne as well as Steven’s credit card history, they found a charge for a hotel in San Francisco.
As they arrived at the hotel in question, hotel staff gave investigators a key to their room, but they found that they weren’t there. It was clear that they had been there at one point as the room was a disaster & littered with weed, coke & ecstasy. It also looked as if they’d dined on a mixture of Fruit Loops, cake & rat poison. There was a note tacked to the TV that read, You’ll find our bodies on the beach.
While officers were in their hotel room, another group was dispatched to patrol the surrounding areas in search of the couple. They were soon alerted that Tylar & Steven had been spotted near a shopping mall. Local officers found the teens changing their clothing behind a dumpster at the mall & arrested them, but since it was unclear if they’d actually ingested rat poison, they needed to be medically evaluated. Apparently they had, but it was a small quantity that left them with nothing more than a slightly upset stomach.
Tylar & Steven were brought to the police station & placed in separate rooms for questioning. Not once did Tylar ask about her mom or mention that she was dead; she acted like she was there because they were looking for her as a runaway. She said, I decided to run away. Steven & I didn’t want to live there anymore, so we left for San Francisco. I was upset because my mom wanted to talk to detectives about Steven & I didn’t want to discuss it at all.
When officers asked her if she was aware of the fact that she was at the station because she murdered her mom, not because she was a runaway, Tylar began screaming, She’s not dead! She can’t be dead! She quickly ended the conversation & asked for a lawyer. It wasn’t lost on the investigator that despite her outburst, she hadn’t shed a single tear at the news that her mom was dead.
When detectives began speaking with Steven, he voiced his concern for Tylar & asked them how she was doing & holding up. Once they began asking questions in regards to Joanne’s murder, like Tylar, he stopped talking & requested an attorney.
While they remained behind bars awaiting trial, it was clear that the gravity of their situation began to settle in as their stories began to change. Steven’s friend, Matthew, had already told detectives that Steven confessed to murdering Joanne with a knife, but now, the once concerned & doting boyfriend suddenly turned on his high school lover. Steven claimed that it was Tylar who was responsible for stabbing her mom to death, claiming that he hadn’t even been there when it happened & arrived after Joanne was already dead.
He claimed that on Thursday, June 11, he’d gone to work at his scheduled time of 3 pm & finished his shift at about 10:15 pm. He said that Tylar called him & said that her mom was upset & had been drinking, so he would be able to sneak over. He said it was too early to try to sneak in so he would wait until it got later before he came over. He said that at about midnight, Tylar called him again & this time, she was panicking so he quickly drove over. When he arrived, he saw Tylar holding a kitchen knife with a bloodstain on her bare leg.
Tylar immediately told him, I killed my mom. When he ran upstairs, he found Joanne in her bed, stabbed to death so they agreed to run away together & eventually commit suicide.
On the other hand, Tylar’s version of events were entirely different & she told detectives that after her mom handed her incriminating diary over to detectives, they decided to run away together & carry out their Romeo & Juliet-style deaths. However, they realized that because Joanne would report Tylar missing, thus ruining their plan, their only option was to kill her.
They concocted a plan that involved Steven stealing a knife from his job where he was a manager at a Mexican restaurant. On Thursday night, Joanne had been drinking & apologized to Tylar for taking her diary & invading her privacy. Once she passed out from drinking, she called Steven to vent about her mom. This was when they decided that the time was right.
Steven parked his car at a nearby elementary school at 10:59 pm & waited until 11:56 pm until Tylar texted him to say it was safe to sneak in. She waited outside & saw that he was carrying the knife he’d stolen. As they crept upstairs, they originally planned to murder Joanne together, but once she was inside her mom’s room, Tylar said she got scared & told Steven he would have to do it alone.
Steven agreed & Tylar said she waited outside her mom’s bedroom. She said she heard everything, her mom waking up, begging for her life, calling Tylar’s name & pleading for her to call 911. Instead, Tylar said she closed her eyes, covered her ears & hummed so she could no longer hear what was going on.
A few minutes later, when Steven came out of the room, he was covered in blood, still holding the knife & appeared to be in shock. She hugged him & told him that everything was going to be okay. When Tylar walked into her mom’s bedroom, she saw her lifeless, bloodied body on the bed. They closed the curtains, turned the air conditioning on & drove to Steven’s dad’s house where they burned their clothes in his fireplace. They claimed to have thrown the knife into a drainage hole near Tylar’s house, but it has never been recovered although investigators believe it was a 10-inch long chef’s knife.
Both Steven & Tylar each pleaded not guilty.
Despite the fact that Tylar was only 14, she would be tried as an adult at the request of her family. She was offered a plea deal; if she confessed to being involved in the murder plot, she would receive a reduced charge of second-degree murder & she would also have to testify against Steven.
She agreed & admitted that she had played a role in her mom’s murder, but she maintained that she had not physically committed the crime.
Steven maintained the story that he never stole a knife from his work & he had not been present when Joanne was murdered. However, he claimed that when he came over, Tylar was standing at the door with a bloody knife with blood dripping everywhere, but there was no other blood found in the kitchen area or where he claimed this was happening. He said that after he realized what Tylar had done, she came up with the plan to burn their clothing & throw the knife into the drain.
In regards to Steven telling his friend Matthew that he was the one who killed Joanne, he claimed he only said this to protect his girlfriend.
Friends & coworkers of Steven’s testified that although he might be considered weird by some & he had an extensive knife collection, he was not a violent person & wouldn’t have been capable of committing such a horrific murder.
The defense argued that because Joanne’s death had been so violent, it was clearly a crime of passion & of the two, Tylar would have had much more reason to want her mom dead. It was mentioned during that trial that, ironically, when her body was found, there was a book on the nightstand about how to parent an out-of-control teenager.
Not only had Tylar’s diary outlined her sexual escapades with Steven, but she often wrote about how she wished her mom would die in a horrible car crash. She wrote, If my mother doesn’t let me see Steven, I swear to god I will kill her!
Although this was damning information, Steven’s journal also contained evidence to suggest that he wanted Joanne dead as well as he wrote that Joanne had to be eliminated in order for he & Tylar to be together. Even more damning, although the DNA evidence from under Joanne’s nails was too small to point to a specific person, it was from a male profile. Not only that, but detectives had noted scratch marks to Steven’s arms when he was arrested.
The defense tried to discredit Tylar as a reliable witness as during a psychological evaluation that was done in prison, she was classified as a sociopath. A sociopath is a disorder that can cause a person to lack empathy or have a lack of remorse for the bad things they’ve done, to lie for personal gain, show a tendency toward physical violence & fights as well as act impulsively.
While Tylar was on the stand, she indicated that there are two super beings who live inside her, an angel named Alex & a demon named Toby. She elaborated that when she’s under stress, the demon takes control of her. The defense argued that this showed that there was another side to Tylar that was aggressive & violent.
Steven’s mom, Jan Colver, maintained throughout that her son was innocent & wasn’t capable of such violence. She also stood by the claim that he only told his friend that he murdered Joanne as a way to protect the girl that he loved. She explained this was characteristic of his giving nature.
Steven’s trial lasted four weeks & after less than four hours of deliberation, jurors returned with a verdict that incidentally fell on the second anniversary of when Joanne’s body was found, June 15, 2011. 21-year-old Steven Colver was found guilty of first-degree murder & sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Because Tylar accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder, she was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. At her sentencing, the judge addressed her & spoke of how she never showed an ounce of emotion or remorse for the loss of her mother.
At 28-years-old, Tylar was released from the Central California Women’s Facility on August 26, 2022 after serving only 11 years.
In 2009, when 14-year-old Tylar believed that her 19-year-old lover was facing serious jail time for statutory rape, in their minds, as many as twenty years, they began plotting their dark plan to murder Joanne. In reality, he likely wouldn’t have gotten any time at all. Instead, Joanne Witt lost her life in a horrific way & Steven Colver will be spending the rest of his life in prison.
References:
- Medium: “I wish my mom was dead”: A deadly pact led to a deadly act. The murder of Joanne Witt
- ABC News: California teen ‘Romeo & Juliet’ suicide pact goes awry after mom’s murder
- Wikipedia: Metallurgy
- The Compassionate Friends: The death of an adult child
- ABC News: ‘Juliet’ teen, Tylar Witt, describes her ‘Romeo,’ Steven Colver, killing mom
- CBS News: Forbidden young love ends with a mother’s violent murder
- WebMD: Sociopaths: Warning signs & red flags
