Carolyn Warmus

Carolyn Warmus (born January 8, 1964) is an American former elementary schoolteacher who was convicted at age 28 of the 1989 murder of her lover's wife, 40-year-old Betty Jeanne Solomon.

Carolyn Warmus was born in 1964 in Troy, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, an affluent suburb of Detroit.

Her father, Thomas A. Warmus, was a self-made multi-millionaire who accumulated his fortune in the insurance business, founding the American Way Life Insurance Company of Southfield.

In 1970, Thomas's wife Elizabeth filed for divorce and, after two years, won custody of Warmus and her two younger siblings.

The divorce decree was handed down when Warmus was aged 8.

Warmus earned good grades, played basketball and graduated from Seaholm High School in Birmingham.

In 1981, she enrolled at the University of Michigan.

After graduating with a degree in psychology, she moved to New York City and earned a master's degree in elementary education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

The murder case attracted national media attention and led to comparisons with the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, about a love affair that turns deadly.

The Warmus case went on to inspire made-for-TV movies, six different episodes across multiple television broadcasters and at least one book.

In September 1987, Warmus landed a job at Greenville Elementary School in Scarsdale, New York.

There, she met soon-to-be lover Paul Solomon, a fifth-grade teacher, along with his family, wife Betty Jeanne and daughter Kristan.

He said he met Warmus in the fall of 1987 at an elementary school in Greenburgh, and that they soon became sexually involved.

The following spring, Solomon wanted to end the unfaithful relationship: "I said, 'Carolyn, you know we're not going to be able to see each other in the summer.'" He went on to testify, "She was upset. She cried. She said, 'Life's not worth living without you.' I said, 'Carolyn, don't be over dramatic.'" During the first trial, the defense asserted that Solomon and the gun seller (a private investigator) tied heavily to the case should have been tried for the murder instead of Warmus.

The trial lasted nearly three months.

After twelve days of deliberations, the jury came back deadlocked at 8–4 in favor of conviction, but unable to arrive at the required unanimous verdict.

In 1989, Thomas's assets were estimated at $150 million; he owned eight jets, two yachts, estates in Michigan, Florida, Arizona, and New York, and fifteen cars.

Early in the evening of January 15, 1989, a New York Telephone operator received a call from a woman in distress.

When the call was abruptly disconnected, she alerted police, but they found nothing because the reverse directory had an incorrect address.

At 11:42 p.m., the body of Betty Jeanne was found in the family's Greenburgh condominium by Solomon.

She had been pistol-whipped in the head and shot nine times in her back and legs.

The investigation initially focused on Solomon, whose alibi was that he had stopped briefly at a local bowling alley to see friends and then spent the evening with Warmus in Yonkers at the Holiday Inn's Treetops Lounge.

Once Warmus and Solomon left the lounge, they went to her car and had sexual relations.

When Warmus and additional witnesses confirmed his alibis, detectives turned their attention elsewhere.

When investigators gained information that Warmus had obtained a .25 caliber Beretta pistol with a silencer shortly before the murder, Detective Richard Constantino checked calls made from her home phone on January 15.

He discovered one made at 3:02 p.m. to Ray's Sport Shop in North Plainfield, New Jersey.

Store 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.

Police now had enough evidence to make an arrest.

On February 2, 1990, Warmus was indicted on the charges of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

After a hung jury at her first trial in 1991, Warmus was convicted of second degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm at her second trial in 1992.

Her first trial began January 14, 1991, at the Westchester County Courthouse, with David Lewis as her attorney.

Solomon testified at the first trial, and received immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony.

She received multiple affirmed disciplinary events, which were referenced during her first parole denial in early 2017.

That same year, Warmus, claiming her innocence, asked that glove evidence discovered by her ex-lover Paul Solomon, the victim's husband, between the first and second trials be tested for DNA.

In May 2021, Westchester County prosecutors consented to DNA testing of the glove, as well as semen recovered from the victim and blood recovered from Solomon's tote bag.

None of the evidence ever underwent DNA testing.

She served 27 years for the murder and was released from prison on parole on June 17, 2019.

Warmus was incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, Westchester County, New York.