Child kidnapper seeks parole; victim's mother calls him 'predator of the innocent'

Child kidnapper seeks parole; victim's mother calls him 'predator of the innocent'

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UTAH STATE PRISON — Paul Brian Warner, 47, would like another chance to prove he can be a productive member of society.

"I know what mistakes I’ve made in the past. But I've done nothing but commit myself to coming out of here a better person,” he recently told Utah Board of Pardons and Parole member Clark Harms.

But the mother of one his victims wants to know why he thinks he deserves to ever be released from the Utah State Prison when she and her daughter are each serving life sentences of their own.

"In the deepest part of his soul, he is a predator of the innocent,” the mother told the board in a recording of the March 27 hearing.

In 1988, when Warner was 17, he was convicted of forcible sexual abuse. In 1990, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to time already served plus a suspended prison sentence of one to 15 years, according to court records.

But after he was released on his 1990 conviction, he kidnapped an 11-year-old girl who had just walked out of a 7-Eleven in 1996. After throwing her into the back of his car, the girl escaped by opening a door as the car was still moving and dropped onto the pavement.

"The image of your handprint on my daughter’s throat is seared into my memory forever,” the girl's mother told the parole board member in tears.

Warner was convicted on an amended charge of attempted kidnapping and in 1998 was sentenced to three years to life in prison.

On March 27, he again went before the board hoping to be granted parole.

"Mr. Warner, I’ve been attending these hearings since your reincarceration in 1998. Both my daughter and I have testified in court and at these hearings. And this was a brave feat for a child of 11. She was brave to come back over the years,” the girl's mother said.

But her daughter did not attend the last hearing. In fact, she said she hasn't seen her daughter now for four years, or her 4-year-old granddaughter. After years of trying to suppress what happened to her, the woman said her daughter is very "fragile" and can no longer handle living in the "real world."

"I’m an estranged grandmother to a 4-year-old girl who I’ve never seen, that is being raised to believe a random woman in another state my daughter took a liking to is her true grandmother. And that’s really messed up, Mr. Warner. And I have you to thank for that.

"You didn’t take my daughter’s life that minute, so many years ago. What you did take was her soul. And that bright light that once was, is gone. She now lives in a world of PTSD, anxiety, mistrust and fear that she will likely never overcome,” she said sternly.

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"Because of you Mr. Warner, my family is broken. My sons and I mourn over her loss every day. Yet we have no grave to put flowers on and no memorial to create.”

During the hearing, Harms noted that the latest psychosexual and psychopathy evaluations of Warner recommend no parole and suggest Warner not even attempt sex therapy again until other issues are resolved. Harms called the reports "intense and detailed."

Warner disagreed with them, saying they countered everything his therapist wrote in a memo in 2011.

"(The doctor who conducted the evaluation) says in here I don’t show any empathy, and I don’t know where he got that,” he said.

Warner said he has his own life sentence and lives with the guilt of what he did every day.

"I’m aware of the mistakes I made while I was out and prior to coming back," he said. "They say I’m a monster. I’m not a monster. I had problems. I’ve tried to deal with those since I’ve been down."

Warner said he still has a strong support group outside of the prison and he is a different person today than he was 20 years ago.

The full board is expected to make a decision of whether to grant parole in a few weeks.

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Pat Reavy is a longtime police and courts reporter. He joined the KSL.com team in 2021, after many years of reporting at the Deseret News and KSL NewsRadio before that.

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