Strange Family Life of 3 Teens Found Dead in NC
Maggie
Published: Sunday, July 29, 2001 6:11 a.m. EDT
Friends, records tell of children's discipline
Boys killed Thursday had slept at neighbor's
By BY AMY GARDNER AND DAN EGBERT, Staff Writers
Neighbors of three teenage siblings found shot to death in their Johnston
County home said Saturday that the two boys had been staying at night with them
since complaints about the family's filthy mobile home two months ago prompted
a visit from the Division of Social Services.
Willard and Joyce Davis said Brandon Keith Warren, 14, and Bradley Kyle Warren,
13, had stayed with them the night before their mother, Nissa Mae Warren, 41,
discovered the boys' bodies Thursday afternoon. An older sister, Marnie Rose
Warren, 19, also was found dead of gunshot wounds in the home.
The Davises said they had planned a fishing trip with the boys for Thursday,
Bradley's birthday, but the trip was postponed because their mother had an
appointment. The Davises said the boys were always extremely polite, were
well-disciplined and did nothing without their mother's approval.
Discipline and Bible study, in fact, were the focus of the Warrens' family
life, according to interviews with neighbors and family as well as court
records from Mesa, Ariz., where Nissa Mae Warren and her husband, Boyd Kent
Warren, 43, were convicted of child abuse a decade ago.
The Warrens moved to North Carolina from Mesa in 1996 in part to find a
suitable church, acquaintances say, and in part to flee a family from which
they had grown estranged. They also wanted to get away from neighbors who
frowned on their brand of family discipline and more than once reported them to
authorities.
"She just decided she didn't want to be here any more," said Jack O'Brien,
Nissa Warren's father and the pastor of Grace Fellowship Bible Church in Mesa.
"That's her right and her privilege."
The family settled in Hickory Crossroads outside Kenly and attended Triangle
Bible Church in Raleigh.
The four Warren children -- the whereabouts of Ellis C. Warren, 21, are unknown
-- had been tightly bonded to their parents, according to court records. Their
mother kept a tight rein on their routines, monitoring such daily activities as
visits to the neighbors with a planning book, acquaintances say.
Willard Davis, a 67-year-old retiree, said he asked the boys once if they'd
help him move some rocks on his Johnston County property, and they responded
that they had to ask their mother, who allotted them one hour for the task.
When they finished up early, and Willard took them back to his shop to give
them each a soda, "they were real cautious because their mom only gave them an
hour," Davis said.
There are two views of Nissa Warren. According to one, she is a friendly,
devoted Christian who raised farm animals, made goat cheese, and was fiercely
independent; according to the other, she is a combative and hostile neighbor
who more than once pulled a handgun on trespassers.
"She acted like a strong woman," said Frances Jones, 39, a neighbor. "She could
slaughter animals and do all that stuff. She did all the work around there. To
me, she had never been hateful or anything, but she had problems with some of
the neighbors around here."
The court records, meanwhile, though 10 years old, paint a picture of a mother
who professed an adamant belief in corporal punishment even after she and her
husband came under investigation for child abuse. The couple's felony
conviction came in 1991, after a neighbor reported bruises on then-9-year-old
Marnie's legs.
The Warrens were both sentenced to probation, and their four children were not
removed permanently from the home.
According to a pre-sentence report, Kent Warren was the primary disciplinarian,
but Nissa Warren witnessed and helped with the beatings. She told the children
"not to tell anybody" and to hide the bruises, the report states.
The report describes the Warrens as a "dysfunctional" family and says Nissa
Warren "has no compassion for her children and has no remorse for the
spankings."
Nissa and Kent Warren declined to speak to a reporter Saturday in front of
their home. The Johnston County Sheriff's Department reported no new
developments in its investigation. On Friday, Sheriff Steve Bizzell had not
ruled out the possibility of a murder-suicide.
O'Brien, Nissa Warren's father, said that he and his daughter have been
estranged since she moved to North Carolina. But O'Brien said he never believed
that the intervention of Arizona Child Protective Services was necessary, and
said much of the problem grew from the involvement of nosy neighbors who didn't
like the fact that the Warrens were different.
"The Bible teaches proper discipline," O'Brien said. "We believe in proper
discipline. We believe that any family has to provide guidelines for their
children, and she was brought up that way.
"Nissa had always wanted to protect her children from pedophiles and foul
language and drugs and alcohol and things like that," he continued. "On the one
hand, society wants you to do that, and on the other hand, they say these
ludicrous things about the kids being prisoners in their own home."
Mitchell Garland, the neighbor in Mesa who first reported the Warrens to
Arizona Child Protective Services in 1990, described in court reports an
isolated family whose children did not play with others in the neighborhood and
who were often heard crying in the back yard during beatings and scoldings.
Others described the suburban house as filthy, just as neighbors and
authorities in Johnston County say about the Warrens' home there.
Upon arriving in North Carolina, the Warrens initially lived in a motel in
Raleigh, then bought their 25-acre lot in Johnston County sight unseen,
according to both Joyce Davis and Judith Levy of Kenly, another friend and
horseback-riding partner of Nissa Warren.
The trailer was in poor condition from the start, Joyce Davis said.
"It's worse than a … concentration camp over there," said Curtis Edgerton,
35, a neighbor in Johnston County, who said he called the Division of Social
Services twice to report the conditions in which the Warren children were
living.
Edgerton argued several times with Nissa Warren and said he saw her draw her
gun on a friend of his.
Little is known about the children. The Davises and another neighbor said the
children spent a lot of time on their land tending to their goats. They were
home-schooled, and often took their books to study out into the field while
tending the animals each day.
The Davises said that, once the boys began staying with the them, they would
not come by until about 10 p.m. and would leave by 8 the next morning. "[Nissa]
didn't want us to feed them," Willard Davis said. "She said she would do it
herself, didn't want to be any trouble. She said they had chores to do all day.
They stayed busy."
That wasn't the only evidence of the family's isolation, Willard Davis said.
When he drove by the house, the children were always standing in the yard or
among the trees. They would all drop into a crouch, as if hiding, when he drove
by.
At the time of their parents' conviction, the two older children, Ellis, then
10, and Marnie, then 9, told police that "things have gotten better" and that,
while spankings were continuing, they were no longer yielding bruises.
Neither child wanted any further counseling.
O'Brien did not know the whereabouts of Ellis Warren, the oldest child, whose
last known address is listed as Sycamore Shadows Apartments in Mesa.
"He decided when he became of age that he wanted to go his own way," O'Brien
said.
Ellis and Marnie Warren were born to Nissa Warren and her second husband, Larry
Ellis Campbell, who died in a truck accident after their divorce. Nissa Warren
married her current husband, Kent, in 1985, and they had two children together,
Brandon and Bradley.
At the age of 18, Nissa Warren married and divorced her first husband, whose
first name was Marvin but whose last name she claims not to recall, according
to court records.
Maggie
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to
do so."
Douglas Adams.
mothra...@my-deja.com
>
> From the Raleigh News & Observer:
>
> Published: Sunday, July 29, 2001 6:11 a.m. EDT
>
> Friends, records tell of children's discipline
> Boys killed Thursday had slept at neighbor's
> By BY AMY GARDNER AND DAN EGBERT, Staff Writers
>
> Neighbors of three teenage siblings found shot to death in their Johnston
> County home said Saturday that the two boys had been staying at night with them
> since complaints about the family's filthy mobile home two months ago prompted
> a visit from the Division of Social Services.
>
<snip>
Thanks for posting this sad, sad story, Maggie. I'm puzzled,
though--the dead kids were the Warrens, and they were staying at the
Davis trailer at night because their own trailer was too filthy? And
the Davises couldn't get their trailer cleaned up after two months? Am
I reading this right?
Martha
Maggie
>>
>> From the Raleigh News & Observer:
>>
>> Published: Sunday, July 29, 2001 6:11 a.m. EDT
>>
>> Friends, records tell of children's discipline
>> Boys killed Thursday had slept at neighbor's
>> Â
>> By BY AMY GARDNER AND DAN EGBERT, Staff Writers
>>
>> Neighbors of three teenage siblings found shot to death in their Johnston
>> County home said Saturday that the two boys had been staying at night
>with them
>> since complaints about the family's filthy mobile home two months ago
>prompted
>> a visit from the Division of Social Services.
>>
>
><snip>
>
>Thanks for posting this sad, sad story, Maggie. I'm puzzled,
>though--the dead kids were the Warrens, and they were staying at the
>Davis trailer at night because their own trailer was too filthy? And
>the Davises couldn't get their trailer cleaned up after two months? Am
>I reading this right?
***It was the Warren family trailer that hadn't been cleaned up.
cora
Cora
In article <20010729074147...@ng-ch1.aol.com>, Maggie says...
DedNdogYrs
Most fanatic Bible thumpers believe in beating their children, saying the Bible
condones it, from what I've seen. I wonder if they ever considered that a
religion that preaches hurting people just might be wrong.
Dogs & children first.