DENTON, Texas — A Texas man used a hacksaw to cut off his mother’s head before fleeing and leading police on a chase into Oklahoma last week before they arrested him, authorities said.
Isaac Israel Warriner, 22, was being held Friday in a Denton County, Texas, jail on charges including the abuse of a corpse. He hasn’t been charged with killing his mother, Sarah Warriner, 65, though authorities didn’t immediately reply to phone messages and emails seeking further details, including whether such charges could be coming.
Police in Denton, which is about 35 miles northwest of Dallas, were called to an apartment complex May 5 by a neighbor who said Isaac Warriner “was acting weird” and carrying around cleaning supplies, according to an affidavit. Officers found his mother’s headless body and the hacksaw inside the Warriners’ unit. Her head wasn’t found in the apartment and it isn’t clear whether it has been located.
Authorities believe Sarah Warriner had been dead for two days before her body was found.
Days earlier, a nurse at a Denton hospital called security when Isaac Warriner threatened to kill his mother and himself, according to the affidavit. It isn’t clear why he was at the hospital, but he left before police arrived.
Isaac Warriner was spotted in his mother’s car on May 6 and led police on a chase up Interstate 35 into Oklahoma, where he was arrested and held before being returned Thursday to Denton. Online jail records don’t indicate whether he has an attorney.
His father, Kenneth Warriner, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this month that his son suffered a mental breakdown a few months ago.
“She had allowed him to stay with her after his last rehabilitation stay,” Kenneth Warriner said of his ex-wife. “He was prescribed psychotic drugs to try and help, but that didn’t seem to work.”
