Carolyn Warmus

Case details

Name: Carolyn Warmus

Status: Warmus was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on June 26, 1992.

Background

Carolyn Warmus was born on January 8, 1964, and was raised in Birmingham, Michigan. She grew up in an affluent suburb of Detroit. Her father, Tom, was a self-made millionaire who accumulated his fortune in the insurance business. Warmus’s parents divorced when she was 8 years old. She attended the University of Michigan, where she drifted into a series of unsuccessful romantic relationships. There was an element of obsessive behavior in her dealings with men.

Warmus had a history of stalking boyfriends and hiring private detectives to determine their whereabouts. One of her former boyfriends, Paul Laven, obtained a restraining order against her after Warmus waged a relentless campaign to win him back. Warmus called Laven and his fiancée and left messages on their answering machine, contacted their friends, and deluged them with notes, including one that falsely claimed Warmus was pregnant with Laven’s child.

After graduating with a degree in psychology, Warmus moved to New York City. She hired a private detective, Vincent Parco, to trail a married New Jersey bartender when he lost interest in her.

Soon after, Warmus earned a master’s degree in elementary education from Teachers College, Columbia University. In September 1987, she took a job at Greenville Elementary in Scarsdale, New York. There she met colleague, mentor, and soon-to-be lover Paul Solomon, a fifth grade teacher, and his family: Solomon’s wife, Betty Jeanne, and daughter Kristan.

Carolyn Warmus bought Kristan expensive gifts and became a role model and big sister to Kristan.

The offence

On the evening of January 15, 1989, Betty Jeanne Solomon was murdered in the family’s Greenburgh condominium. Her body was found by her husband at 11:42 p.m.

Betty Jeanne Solomon had been pistol-whipped about the head. She had nine bullet wounds in her back and legs.

Police suspected Warmus after they determined she had obtained a .25 caliber Beretta pistol with a silencer shortly before the murder.

Investigation

A New York Telephone operator received a call from a woman in distress early in the evening of January 15, 1989. The call was abruptly disconnected. The operator alerted police, but police found nothing because the reverse directory had an incorrect address.

At 3:02 p.m. on January 15, a call was made from Warmus’s home phone to Ray’s Sport Shop in North Plainfield, New Jersey. The store’s records indicated the only female to purchase .25-caliber ammunition that day was Liisa Kattai from Long Island. When questioned, Kattai denied ever being in the shop or buying ammunition.

Further investigation determined that Kattai’s driver’s license had been lost or stolen while she was employed at a summer job, where one of her co-workers was Warmus.

When police gained information that Warmus had obtained the pistol with silencer from Vincent Parco, Detective Richard Constantino checked calls made from Warmus’s home phone on January 15.

Police now had enough evidence to make an arrest.

Arrest and charges

Warmus was indicted on the charge of second-degree murder on February 2, 1990.

Carolyn made her $250,000 bail and her father paid for her bond.

During the proceedings around the first trial, Warmus was described as having pleaded not guilty. At some point she was also described as having been indicted on second-degree murder and weapons-possession charges.

In addition, an indictment involving possession of an unregistered firearm was described as having been issued, and later dismissed.

A second trial followed.

Trial

First trial

Warmus’s trial was held at the Westchester County Courthouse. David Lewis was her attorney.

The jury announced they were hopelessly deadlocked at 8–4 in favor of conviction and unable to arrive at a unanimous verdict. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial on April 27, 1991.

Second trial

In January 1992, a second trial began.

A bloody cashmere glove belonging to Warmus, spotted in a photograph of the crime scene, was recovered. The jury deliberated for six days and Warmus was found guilty on May 26, 1992.

Judge John Carey did not grant Warmus leniency, stating she had committed “a hideous act, a most extreme, illegal and wanton murder.”

During the second trial, a black glove photographed at the murder scene and later vanished was rediscovered, and the evidentiary dispute over the gloves included reference to gloves Warmus purchased from Filene’s Basement.

Sentencing

On June 26, 1992, Judge John Carey sentenced Warmus.

Warmus faced a minimum of 15 years, but Judge Carey sentenced her to the maximum, 25 years to life in prison.

A murder sentence of imprisonment for a term of not less than twenty-five years was imposed, along with a concurrent sentence under the gun possession count of confinement for not less than five years nor more than fifteen.

Appeals

A motion for a new trial was filed by Warmus’s attorney on March 15, 1993, claiming two pieces of key evidence had been withheld. Judge Carey denied a retrial.

The appeal proceedings included: “The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Carolyn Warmus, Appellant. Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Westchester County (Carey, J.), rendered June 26, 1992, convicting her of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.”

Outcome

Warmus was convicted of second-degree murder and illegal gun possession (described as “guilty on May 26, 1992” in the second trial), and she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on June 26, 1992.

Other details

Warmus was described as being incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. She was eligible for parole in 2017. If she had been given the minimum sentence of 15 years in prison, she would have been paroled in 2007.

In 2004, Warmus and inmate Pamela Smart filed separate lawsuits claiming to have been sexually abused by prison guards. Warmus stated that when she tried to complain about the abuse she was punished in protective custody, and that she was made to trade sexual favors for ordinary privileges. Warmus received a $10,000 settlement from the Department of Correctional Services, for her claims that she was sexually abused and deprived of rights at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

Warmus said she was forced to have sex with the corrections officers if she wanted time out of her cell.

Warmus’s trial was compared in popular coverage to the movie Fatal Attraction. Two television movies about the case aired in the latter part of 1992. In 2004, Warmus was profiled on the Oxygen Network television series Snapped. In 2008, Warmus was featured on Investigation Discovery (ID) program Deadly Women in the episode “Hearts of Darkness.” In 2008, the murder, investigation, and trial was also shown on another ID series, entitled Cold Blood, in the episode “Femme Fatale.”