Click for printable version
Click to send to a friend

Former Nevada Highway Patrol trooper George Warner, photographed in court in 1989, had been scheduled for trial April 2 on allegations that he set his fifth wife on fire. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Thursday, March 22, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Prosecutors to abandon case against ex-trooper

A former state trooper whose case has a tortuous procedural history will not stand trial on charges arising from the 1989 mobile home fire that killed his fifth wife, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger said prosecutors will seek to dismiss murder and arson charges pending against George Warner, who was scheduled to be tried April 2 in the fire that claimed Carol Warner.

The announcement follows a March 15 decision by a Nevada Supreme Court panel that upheld a January ruling unfavorable to prosecutors. District Judge Jeffrey Sobel ruled prosecutors could not present evidence that Warner's fourth wife was burned in a mobile home fire in Pahrump in 1981.

In a Wednesday memo to District Attorney Stewart Bell, Roger said the higher court ruling left prosecutors with insufficient evidence to secure a conviction and thus an ethical obligation to seek dismissal of the charges.

"There will be many people who will opine the defendant has beaten the system and gotten away with murder," the prosecutor wrote. "A fair evaluation of this case requires that the state decline further prosecution."

Defense attorney John Watkins said Warner, who resigned from the Nevada Highway Patrol shortly after his August 1989 arrest, did not get away with murder.

"George was an innocent man from day one," Watkins said.

He said his client has declined in health and now scrapes out a living as a woodworker in his garage. "His life is destroyed," Watkins said.

Efforts to contact Carol Warner's children were not successful Wednesday.

On four prior occasions, judges have dismissed an indictment or criminal complaint filed in the case. Each time, prosecutors either have appealed the ruling successfully or filed new charges.

Carol and George Warner had been married for seven years when a blaze swept through their 3579 Estes Park mobile home June 5, 1989. Carol Warner, 54, suffered burns over 85 percent of her body and died 15 days later.

George Warner said he was sleeping in the bedroom when he was awakened by his wife's scream. Upon noticing signs of a fire, he broke a bedroom window and climbed outside. His wife soon came through the same window, and he carried her to a neighbor's yard, he said.

Prosecutors alleged George Warner poured a flammable liquid on his wife and then set her on fire while she sat on a chair in the den. They said the injured woman walked alone to the neighbor's yard.

In court, the prosecution has said law enforcement granted George Warner "professional courtesies" in the early stages of the investigation.

Police did not secure the mobile home or examine it in detail until more than two weeks after the fire. No trace of an accelerant was detected.

At trial, prosecutors had planned to rely on experts who examined burn patterns within the home. The defense was prepared to counter with its own expert witnesses.

Prosecutors had sought to tell jurors that George Warner's fourth wife, Nancy, told authorities she was burned in a 1981 mobile home fire following an argument with Warner.

Watkins said that fire was ruled an accident, and no charges were ever filed.