A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to 40 to 80 years in prison for the gruesome killing of a 66-year-old man whose dismembered remains were found burned in a fire pit at his home in Summit Township more than two years ago.
On Monday, an Erie County judge handed down the sentence to 37-year-old Marisa Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty in August to ten charges, including third-degree murder and abuse of a corpse, in connection with the death of Michael Maisner.
According to evidence presented in court, Rodriguez shot Maisner in the head, dismembered his body with a chainsaw, and attempted to burn the remains in a fire pit behind his home on Crestview Drive. The judge described the case as the “worst series of facts” he had ever read in a courtroom.
Maisner’s family became suspicious when they discovered Rodriguez hiding in the attic of his house, surrounded by what police described as disturbing writings. She fled the scene in Maisner’s car and was later arrested in New York.
Initially declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, Rodriguez’s status was later reversed, allowing the case to move forward. During sentencing, the judge emphasized that the 40-to-80-year term represented the maximum penalty allowed by law. Rodriguez will also undergo a mental health evaluation while in custody.
More than a dozen of Maisner’s family members and friends attended Monday’s hearing. His niece, Valerie Korynoski, expressed mixed emotions about the outcome. “I believe that the judge’s ruling was fair, but to us as a family, she should have life. I know that’s not how the legal system works, but we’re never going to get him back,” Korynoski said.
She added that the family continues to struggle with the brutal nature of the crime and the lack of closure. “We have not a piece of him. We don’t have anything to bury him in. She even took his personal items and destroyed them, threw them out, sent them to the landfill like she did with him,” she said.
During the hearing, Rodriguez’s defense argued that she believed she had been sexually assaulted by Maisner and claimed he “was aggressive” toward her. Maisner’s family strongly rejected those allegations, saying he was a generous and caring man who had tried to help her.
“My Uncle Mike, he was loving. He took her off the streets, he gave her a home, he bought her expensive things, and as far as her trying to slander him while we’re there, that was wrong, that was not him,” Korynoski said. Though Rodriguez will spend decades in prison, Maisner’s family said no sentence could ever make up for the horror of losing him.