Marshfield Woman Sentenced for Hiding a Marshfield Man's Body After He Died From an Overdose

Thursday, April 28th, 2022 -- 1:01 PM

(Marshfield News Herald) A judge sentenced a Marshfield woman Tuesday to one year in jail for helping to hide the body of a Marshfield man for nearly a year after he died from a drug overdose. 

According to the Marshfield News Herald, Stephanie M. Trewyn, 41, pleaded no contest Tuesday to being a party to the crime of hiding a corpse and obstructing an officer. Wood County Circuit Judge Todd Wolf gave Trewyn three years of probation and ordered her to spend one year in jail.

Before Wolf sentenced Trewyn, the mother of Zachary L. Vasa, the 32-year-old Marshfield man who died of a drug overdose, spoke about the effect of Trewyn's actions on Vasa's family.

According to the criminal complaint, Vasa had lived with Trewyn for a short time before a woman reported him missing June 20, 2020. When police contacted Trewyn about Vasa's disappearance, she said she woke up on June 13 or 15, 2020, and found Vasa gone, according to the document.

Police investigated the disappearance and searched the home of a man in the town of Rock, about 10 miles south of Marshfield. A dog trained in finding human remains indicated there were remains on the man's bed, in an attached garage and in an unattached garage, according to the complaint.

Police used the dog to sniff outside of Trewyn's vehicle, and the dog indicated human remains had been in the back and trunk of the vehicle, according to the complaint. In March 2020, the man told a Wood County investigator he was at his Rock home in the garage when Trewyn and Vasa came over.

The man said he and Vasa were using heroin and methamphetamine, and that Trewyn left to go to work and the two men continued to use heroin until they passed out, according to the complaint.

The man said he awoke and discovered Vasa was dead, and then he put his body into Trewyn's vehicle and picked her up from work. He said they drove around for a while deciding what to do, according to the complaint.

The man and Trewyn decided to drag Vasa's body into a wooded area in Rock, according to the complaint. The man was on probation and afraid he would go to jail, and Trewyn was afraid she would go to jail because she had used heroin to ease the pain in her back, according to the complaint.

The man made a deal with officers, told them what happened and showed them where he and Trewyn had left the body, said Wood County Assistant District Attorney Nathan Oswald.

Officials wanted to give Vasa's family some closure, so made the deal not to charge the man, Oswald said. Officers gave Trewyn several chances to tell them where Vasa was and offered to protect her from the other man, Oswald said.

Instead of telling the truth and letting the family know where Vasa was, she continued to lie, he said. Wolf said the one-year sentence Oswald recommended was appropriate for her part in hiding Vasa's body.

He ordered her to report to the Wood County Jail immediately. Wolf gave Trewyn credit for 131 days already served in jail.

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