Carolyn Warmus – Fatal Attraction Killer

When a beautiful 23-year-old school teacher named Carolyn Warmus, is assigned a forty-year-old male mentor who would have known she would become a killer?  An affair, a missing glove, and disputed phone records would lead to not one, but two murder trials.

On March 3, 1991, Janet Crawley of the Chicago Tribune wrote an article entitled “In New York Suburb, Trial Blends Love, Infidelity, Murder“.  

“an attractive blonde school teacher, daughter of a Michigan millionaire is charged with murdering her lover’s wife in an attempt to have him all to herself.  The prosecutor says she’s obsessed. The defense says she has been framed.”

Janet Crawley

We’ll let you decide.

Background: Who is Carolyn Warmus?

Carolyn Warmus was born in 1964 in Troy, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, an affluent suburb of Detroit. Her father was Thomas Warmus, who founded the American Way Life Insurance Company. He was a self-made millionaire.

Carolyn’s parents divorced in 1972 when she was 8 years old and Carolyn and her two younger siblings went to live with her father. He would end up marrying his secretary, and moving the family to Franklin Village, known as “the town that time forgot”.  

In 1981 Carolyn enrolled at the University of Michigan and graduated four years later with a degree in Psychology. Upon graduation, she moved to New York City and earned a Masters Degree in Elementary Education from Columbia University. In September of 1987, Carolyn was hired at Greenville Elementary School in Greenburgh, New York.

The Affair

Paul Solomon, who was 40 at the time, was a 5th-grade teacher at Greenville Elementary School. Conveniently, he was assigned as a mentor to Carolyn Warmus. Solomon was hired in 1974 and had been working as a teacher for 13 years when he met Carolyn Warmus. He also coached soccer, basketball, and golf at community recreation programs and was by all accounts a popular teacher.

Soon the two would begin an affair that would last a year and a half. 

Carolyn claims that she did not know Paul was married when they first got together. She found out soon after and decided to stay with him anyway. Carolyn also stated that Paul told her that when his daughter graduates from high school he would leave his wife for her. His daughter, Kristen Solomon was 16 or 17 at this time. Carolyn claimed that Paul told her that he had an open marriage with his wife, Betty Jeanne. Betty was involved in an extramarital affair of her own.

Carolyn has stated in interviews that she had been invited over to the Solomon residence for dinner. She even took Kristen on ski outings in an attempt to get to know her. At one point during their affair, Carolyn transferred to work at another school district.

January 15, 1989

At 11:42 pm  Paul Solomon came home to discover his wife’s body in their Greenburgh condominium. Betty Jeanne Solomon had been pistol-whipped about the head and received a total of 9 gunshots to her back and legs at close range. There were no missed shots.  

Paul called the police. When they arrived they allowed Paul to wash his hands and change his clothes as he had blood all over them. Not surprisingly, Paul’s gunshot residue tests would be negative. Investigators discovered that a New York 911 dispatcher received a distress call from a woman around 7:15 pm from the Solomon residence. The call was suddenly disconnected. The dispatcher notified the police, but they did not find anything. Apparently, the address they went to was not listed properly when they used the reverse directory to locate the address.

The dispatcher was unable to tell if the female caller was saying “he is trying to kill me” or “she is trying to kill me” before the call was disconnected. Kristen Solomon was not home at the time as she was away with friends on a ski trip.

A black glove was photographed next to Betty Jeanne’s body, but for whatever reason was never placed into evidence. Paul Solomon was asked if he knew the whereabouts of the glove. He did not and said he couldn’t find it in his apartment when he looked. This would play a key role in upcoming trials.

Shell casings found at the scene matched a 25 caliber Beretta

Paul Solomon Questioned

Paul Solomon was questioned by Greenburgh Police Detective Richard Constantino. When Detective Constantino arrived he found it odd that Paul Solomon had no blood on him. Paul had claimed that he rolled his wife over when he found her. The patrol officer allowing Paul to wash his hands and change his clothes ruined any testing of Paul’s hands for gunshot residue. He describes Paul as being “sheepish.” He made himself a suspect by his demeanor and of course, the spouse is always looked at first. The medical examiner would initially place Betty Jeanne’s time of death between 2 pm to 6 pm

The Investigation

Detective Constantino would discover not only Paul’s affair with Carolyn Warmus but also his other numerous affairs as Paul was a “serial womanizer.” Paul told police that the day of Betty Jeanne’s murder that he had woken up and they had made love. Then they hung out and watched tv prior to him leaving for the evening.

He says that he received a call from Carolyn Warmus around noon. They made plans to meet up for her birthday later that evening. The couple met up later that evening at a restaurant in Yonkers connected to a Holiday Inn called the Treetops Lounge. They would dine on hamburgers and oysters

Warmus was brought in for questioning at 2 am on January 16th. Carolyn claims that she was at her upper east side Manhattan apartment most of the day. She left around 6:45 pm for the 45-minute drive out to Yonkers. She met Paul at 7:30 pm at the Holiday Inn restaurant.

Their Stories Diverge

Where their stories diverge is when Paul told police initially that after dinner he left to go to a bowling alley to meet up with some friends before returning home. Carolyn’s version was that after dinner they had gone out to the parking lot to her car and had sex in the backseat. Carolyn claims that during that initial interview there were two investigators in the room with her and after she told them about having sex with Paul that night one of them left and soon returned stating that Paul denied having “any physical contact with you.”

Carolyn then told police that Paul is lying because she can tell them the color of the underwear he had on that night. She claims the same officer left again and came back shortly and said “okay we believe you.” Paul later admitted to having sex with Carolyn in her car

Ongoing Investigation

Paul would remain a suspect for the next year to year and a half. Soon after Betty Jeanne’s death, Paul broke off his relationship with Carolyn and they didn’t see each other for 7 months. Paul began a new relationship with a fellow teacher after he ended things with Carolyn. This was 6 months after his wife’s death.

Carolyn claims that Paul showed up at her door out of the blue one night. She invited him in and they started up where they left off having sexual relations. But only for one night. After that night, Paul claimed that he couldn’t see her anymore because he felt that if the police saw them together they would never leave him alone. This seemed to confuse Carolyn, as Paul was the one that reached out to her.  Carolyn would also claim that Paul would be in touch with her one more time. This time to invite her to meet him in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico: Turning Point

When Paul Solomon returned from Puerto Rico he told police that Carolyn had followed him and his current girlfriend there and stalked them. Carolyn claims that Paul is the one that invited her. When he failed to show up at the airport to pick her up she tracked him down at the hotel he was staying at to find out what was going on.

Paul would testify that Warmus had followed them and phoned their room saying she wanted to meet. Paul claims that he and his girlfriend were so fearful that they fled back to New York.

Investigators discovered that Carolyn had a restraining order against her from a man she had been dating while attending the University of Michigan.  He broke up with her and soon became engaged to another woman. They alleged that Carolyn would leave them harassing phone calls and notes. This man and his fiance took out a restraining order against Carolyn to keep her from showing up unexpectedly at their wedding. In an interview that Carolyn had done years later, she claims that they both had restraining orders out on each other.

Information also came to light that Carolyn made numerous calls to Paul’s girlfriend’s family in an effort to end their relationship. Warmus soon became the prime suspect. This was based on Paul’s stalking claim, obsessive behaviors, and the incident from when she was in college.

Carolyn Warmus Arrest and Trials

Carolyn Warmus was arrested on February 2, 1990, more than a year after the murder. There was no physical evidence linking her to the crime. She was charged with 2nd-degree murder and 2nd-degree criminal possession of a weapon. She was freed on a $250,000 bond put up by her father.

The prosecution’s theory of the crime was that Carolyn grew impatient waiting for Paul to leave his wife so she took matters into her own hands. Judge John Carey would preside over Carolyn’s trial(s). The 1st indictment was thrown out by Judge Carey because the instructions given to the grand jury were faulty. A 2nd indictment would follow and Carolyn Warmus’s trial was scheduled two years later.

Trial No. 1

The trial took place in White Plains, New York in the same courtroom on the 10th floor that Jean Harris was convicted of murdering her lover, Dr. Herman Tarnower, The Scarsdale Diet.

The trial started on January 14, 1991, with a seated jury of 8 women and 2 men. From the start, there was a media frenzy around this case. Carolyn Warmus was dubbed the Fatal Attraction Killer based upon the hit movie from 1987 starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglass. She would come to be vilified in the press as a “murderous homewrecker.”

She was photographed getting out of a limo with a hat, short skirt, and sunglasses (google it) seemingly to push forward the notion that she was the real-life version of Glenn Close’s character from Fatal Attraction. Prosecutors Douglass Fitzmorris and  James McCarthy were assigned to the case. This trial would take 13 weeks and involve the testimony of 56 witnesses. The defense was lead by Attorney David Lewis.

Solomon Testifies

Solomon would end up testifying against Carolyn under a grant of immunity. He testified that they had met in the fall of 1987 and soon became involved sexually. By the spring Paul wanted to end it because they would not be able to see each other as much over the summer break. He claims that Carolyn cried, was upset and made life-ending statements (“I can’t live without you”). Solomon also testified that he signed a movie deal with Citadel Entertainment in the amount of $175,000 plus the money he received from Betty Jeanne’s life insurance policy.

Sleazy Witness

Another state witness, also granted immunity, was Private Investigator Vincent Parco. He testified that he had done some work for Carolyn Warmus in the past and she had contacted him about purchasing a gun. Parco admitted to selling Carolyn a .25 caliber Jetfire Automatic Beretta with a silencer for $2500 just days before the killing. He also testified that Warmus told him that she threw the gun away off the parkway. Under cross-examination he admits to being infatuated with Carolyn and that he is a master of deception as a private detective. Even the prosecution found him sleazy.

Telephone Records

The state presented evidence in the form of telephone records from Warmus’s apartment which was located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The call they presented was to Ray’s Gun Shop located in North Plainfield, New Jersey around 3:02 pm on the day of the murder. The female caller asked about purchasing bullets that would fit a Beretta pistol. Store records showed only one female had come into the store that day.

She presented a driver’s license with the name of Elle Katai and purchased .25 caliber ammunition. Elle Katai, who was from Long Island, had worked with Carolyn Warmus at a summer program and reports that her license had been lost or stolen that summer. She denied ever being in Ray’s Gun Shop or buying ammunition.

Police were unable to determine whether the shell casing at the crime scene matched the shell casings that were sold by the gun shop in New Jersey.

The coroner testified as to the cause of Betty Jeanne’s fatal injuries. They would place the time of death between the hours of 6 pm and 8 pm, mostly based upon the 911 call. The 911 operator testified that the call coming from the Solomon residence. However, they were unsure whether the female caller was saying “he” or “she” and the recording of the 911 never was presented.

It’s a Set Up

The Defense claimed that Solomon and Parco were setting Carolyn up and both were involved in the murder of Betty Jeanne. Carolyn denies that Parco ever sold her the gun. Parco admitted on cross-examination that he initially lied to the police by not telling them about the gun. He was afraid he had done something illegal. He also admitted on the stand that he was attracted to Carolyn, but she had rebuffed him.

The defense pointed out that police had only searched Parco’s office, but not his home. They were trying to suggest that Detective Constantino failed to thoroughly investigate Parco as a suspect. Detective Constantino testified that everyone he investigated, including Betty Jeanne’s own lover, had verified alibis, except for Paul Solomon. Paul was the prime suspect for over a year until their focus switched to Carolyn Warmus after Paul and his girlfriend returned from Puerto Rico.

The defense presented a witness of their own, Mr. Joseph Liselle. Mr. Liselle testified to being in the bathroom at the bowling alley in Yonkers. This was the same bowling alley Solomon admitted he was at on the evening of his wife’s murder. He claims that he overheard Solomon and Parco exchanging $20,000 and talking about tossing the gun in the river. He heard Solomon say “count it if you don’t believe me.” Later Parco says “don’t worry about the gun it’s in the deepest part of the river.” On cross-examination, he admitted to having contact with Warmus’s father prior to his testimony.

Her Father Testifies on Her Behalf

Mr. Warmus claimed that PI Parco had contacted him prior to the start of the trial claiming that he could help, but only if he paid him up to six figures. Mr. Warmus did not take the deal. The defense also put on truck driver Antonio Gambino. Gambino testified that Parco had tried to hire him to commit a murder just before Betty Jeanne’s death.

The prosecution would end up putting an MCI Telephone representative, Thomas Sabol, on the stand. They presented a phone bill that showed a call from Warmus’s home at 3:02 pm to the gun shop in New Jersey. The defense would put up its own bill/computer records showing a discrepancy and contradicting the bill that the prosecutor presented. Their records showed a call from Carolyn’s number at 6:44 pm the night of the murder. The prosecution would claim, as would Thomas Sabol, that the defense phone records were doctored.

The gun used in Betty Jeanne’s murder has never been found.

Carolyn did not testify in her own defense. The jury deliberated for 12 days and came back hung in an 8 to 4 decision in favor of conviction. Judge Cary declared a mistrial on April 27, 1991.

 Trial # 2 (8 months later)

Trial # 2 began January 22, 1992. This was the exact same trial except for one new addition….the black glove. The prosecutors presented a black cashmere glove, that had microscopic blood stains on it, that allegedly belonged to Carolyn Warmus and claim that this is the same glove that was photographed at the scene. Why wasn’t this glove presented at the first trial? Because it was never collected and/or somehow misplaced.

Detective Constantino called it an “oversight.”

Where was it found? Paul Solomon says that he discovered it in a box in his closet in the same apartment he had shared with Betty Jeanne after the 1st trial had ended. Both the prosecution and the defense had asked for the glove in the first trial, but Paul claimed that he had searched every square inch of his apartment and couldn’t find it.

The judge refused to allow for forensic testing. He asserted that there didn’t appear to be enough blood for DNA testing and the glove’s whereabouts could not be verified during the time it was missing. However, he did still allow the glove to entered into evidence.

The police found evidence that they presented at trial that Carolyn had bought two pairs of cashmere gloves from Filene’s Basement in Scarsdale a year before the murder. The receipt does not indicate what color they were. The defense questioned that this was even the same glove. They argued that definitive proof was not presented that this glove belonged to Carolyn or was even the same glove from the crime scene photographs. Tied into the defense theory that Solomon was trying to frame Warmus.

Also, a fingerprint found in blood at the scene was not Carolyn’s and had never been matched to a suspect.

The Defense

The defense under a new attorney, William Arnold, claimed that Carolyn had no experience firing guns. However, Paul did as he had firearms in his home and was in the military.

In additon, Carolyn had voluntarily agreed to talk with the police without an attorney present. She had taken four polygraph tests that she claimed to have passed.

This information is from WWW.CAROLYNWARMUS.ORG

Carolyn Warmus was found guilty of 2nd-degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm on May 27, 1992.

Carolyn Warmus Sentence

Before sentencing Carolyn Warmus gave the following statement: “I can only ask for leniency because I am innocent.  If I’m guilty of anything at all it was simply being foolish enough to believe the lies and promises that Paul Solomon made to me.”

Her sentence was 25 years to life for 2nd-degree murder and 5 to 15 years for the illegal possession of a firearm to run concurrently. She is incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. The same day Carolyn Warmus was sentenced her attorney William Arnold, announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for Betty Jeanne Solomon’s death. The amount of $250,000 was put up by her family.

Paul Solomon & Vincent Parco

After the first trial, Scarsdale School District faced pressure to remove Paul as he had testified in open court to having multiple extramarital affairs. In December of 1991, Paul Solomon was relieved of his teaching duties and placed into a non-teaching role.

Vincent Parco was convicted in May 2019 in  Brooklyn on charges that he hired prostitutes to blackmail a witness in a child sex abuse case.

Parole

Carolyn Warmus’s first parole hearing was on January 9, 2017. Parole was denied and she is eligible to reapply in July 2018.

When questioned by the parole board as to her whereabouts at the time of Betty Jeanne’s murder Carolyn shared that when the time of death was originally 2 to 6 pm she was in her apartment in Manhatten. When the time of death changed to 6 to 8 pm she had left her apartment at 6:45 pm and driven 45 minutes to meet Paul in Yonkers for dinner.

She was released on June 17, 2019, and is on parole for life. Carolyn is currently 55 years old and has been diagnosed with a non-malignant brain tumor.

Additional Information:

Carolyn Warmus has never changed her story and claims she is innocent and a victim of negative media and set up by Paul Solomon. She has asked for the glove to be tested, especially now with updated DNA testing.

That request has been denied by the prosecutor’s office

Carolyn is receiving assistance from Jeffrey Deskovic, who’s own murder conviction was overturned by DNA evidence. He now puts the money he received (millions) to help others through his foundation The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation. This may be a case we cover in the future.

Jeffrey was convicted at 17 of raping and murdering a fellow classmate, Angela Correa (15 years old) in 1989. The Innocence Project got involved and got the DA’s office to retest the DNA. It tied the rape/murder to a convicted felon who had killed a school teacher from Peeksville in 1993.

Resources

• Carolyn Warmus, convicted in ‘Fatal Attraction’ murder, is getting out of prison
• Carolyn Warmus, the woman convicted in the ‘Fatal Attraction’ murder, has been released from prison
• IN N.Y. SUBURB, TRIAL BLENDS LOVE, INFIDELITY, MURDER
• Carolyn Warmus Trials: 1991 1992 – Second Trial Results In Conviction
• “Fatal Attraction” killer to be released from prison
• Unrepentant ‘Fatal Attraction’ killer claims ex-lover is real murderer
• Carolyn Warmus Trials: 1991 1992 – Solomon Tells Of Unusual Marriage, Vigorous Defense Launched, Second Trial Results In Conviction
• Carolyn Warmus Trials: 1991 1992 – Solomon Tells Of Unusual Marriage, Vigorous Defense Launched, Second Trial Results In Conviction
• The ‘Fatal Attraction’ murder revisited
• Exclusive: Carolyn Warmus speaks out from prison about Betty Jeanne Solomon murder case
• Carolyn Warmus: 2017 Parole Hearing Transcript
• Exonerated of murder, Jeffrey Deskovic graduates from law school
• CarolynWarmus.org – Home

Books – Movies – TV Shows

• Fatal Attraction: The True Story of Carolyn Warmus by Susan Butler. Pub. August 6, 2016
• Lovers of Deceit:  Carolyn Warmus & the Fatal Attraction by Mike Gallagher. Pub. May 1, 1993.
• ABC docudrama:  A Murderous Affair:  The Carolyn Warmus Story.  September 13, 1992
• CBS docudrama: The Danger of Love:  The Carolyn Warmus Story. October 4, 1992
• CNN. Fatal Attraction or Fatal Mistake? August 4, 2017
• Scorned: Loves Kills.  Investigative Discovery.   Season 5. Episode 10. May 16, 2015.
• Deadly Women.  Investigative Discovery.  Season 3. Episode 6. September 24, 2009.
• Cold Blooded.  Investigative Discovery.  Season 1. Episode 4. November 12, 2008.  

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