Posted on 08/29/2002 2:05:39 PM PDT by Temple Owl
Doctor's wife recounts macabre life
CINDY SWIRKO
The Gainesville Sun
GAINESVILLE — While police cataloged and cleared body parts from the home of a Gainesville neurologist Wednesday, his wife and a former girlfriend described it as a house of horrors that included forced drugging and physical abuse.
Dr. Joseph James Warner, 49, Wednesday bonded out of the Alachua County jail, where he had been held since his arrest early Tuesday morning on charges of domestic battery and illegal storage/preservation of human remains, both misdemeanors.
Meanwhile, officials in the University of Florida College of Medicine issued a statement Wednesday regarding Warner’s role in teaching neuroanatomy at UF and the discovery of numerous anatomical specimens in his home.
Authorities believe the body parts were taken from UF. Warner was a courtesy assistant professor who taught neuroanatomy classes at the UF College of Medicine and had a lab there.
Lynn Romrell, who directs the Anatomical Board of the State of Florida, said Warner ‘‘may have taken specimens from his campus laboratory to his home without approval or authorization from the board.’’
Romrell said state law prohibits anyone from transporting human brains or any other human body parts to a site outside of designated university facilities unless they obtain a written letter of authorization from the Anatomical Board. No such letter was obtained, he said.
Relatives of Warner had no comment on the case and he wasn't available for comment on Wednesday.
Police discovered a house full of preserved human and animal body parts when they went there regarding a domestic battery call in which his wife, Debra Warner, alleged he had punched her in the face and threw her against a glass display case.
Debra Warner on Wednesday said she was very uncomfortable with all the body parts in the house. That led to arguments between them.
‘‘It was like a morgue in there,’’ she said. ‘‘When I found an arm in the garage about two weeks ago, he told me to stay the hell out of the garage. That’s when he started getting nasty with me. He’s a tyrant.’’
Anthony Falsetti of UF’s C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory was at Warner’s house at 3211 NW 38th St. assisting GPD in the cataloging of parts, said GPD Cpl. Keith Kameg.
‘‘He has storage facilities for us. He is a specialist in this area,’’ Kameg said. ‘‘It will take a couple of days. We are cataloging, photographing and videotaping the materials. Every item seized has to be cataloged and a chain of custody maintained since it could be evidence.’’
GPD is the lead investigative agency. The University Police Department is also involved in the investigation since the body parts came from UF.
Police do not have an exact count on how many body parts are in the house.
Warner graduated from the UF College of Medicine in 1979. He has worked at or done research at UF and at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Lake City and Gainesville.
He also ran an neurology treatment center in Lake City.
Debra Warner said she met Warner when she became a patient of his in Lake City. They began dating and eloped in November when Warner was attending a conference in San Diego.
They were already married when she first entered Warner’s Gainesville home.
‘‘He forbade me to go in the garage or into his lab. All of my stuff is in the dining room because every room of the house is filled with body parts and research material,’’ she said. ‘‘The outside is beautiful, but you go inside and it was disgusting. He told me he couldn’t keep housekeepers. He couldn’t understand why they kept quitting.’’
Debra Warner said she did not allow any parts to be kept in the bedroom of her 12-year-old son from a previous marriage, but that he was exposed to them.
In one instance, she said, the boy was going fishing in a nearby creek. He got a bucket from under the kitchen sink to take with him, opened it and found a head. She said Warner named the head Fester. That is the name of a character in the television show and movies, ‘‘The Addams Family.’’
‘‘Most of the heads he kept in the lab, but right next to our bed he had a bunch of heads. I told him they really bothered me and he covered them with a blanket,’’ she said. ‘‘He had a lab set up in the house but he never used it. He would bring the body parts into the kitchen and start cutting them up because he said the lab was too crowded. I told him I couldn’t take it any more. I said ’I’m not cooking any more if you keep bringing body parts in the kitchen.’ So he set up an extra study and was cutting them up in there.’’
Debra Warner said Joseph Warner also had heads and other body parts at his Lake City business, the Neurological Sciences Center.
Warner was married at least four times, and lived with several other women.
Both Debra Warner and a former live-in girlfriend of Warner said he force-fed them drugs.
‘‘He used to wake me up in the morning by grabbing my cheeks and shoving a sedative down my throat. He started doing it months go. He said it was an anti-convulsant for my head injury,’’ Debra Warner said.
‘‘It made me sleepy. He would stuff it in my mouth, pour a cup of coffee down my throat and say, ’Here sweetie, now put on your lab coat and come to work with me.’ He wanted me to learn neurology. He made me go to the university with him one day and watch him dissect a cadaver.’’
The former girlfriend had filed a domestic violence complaint against Warner that was later dismissed.
Both women said Warner was very controlling and domineering.
Yeah, but his wives learned very quickly never to ask for a little head.
Hmmmm... Lessee here... Former patient, neurological disorders... And wouldn't the odor get to ya sooner or later... Formaldehyde would be less nauseating than rotting flesh, but it'd still singe yer nose hairs...
What?
My wife said the same thing. Only she made me go down the basement.
Holy Merde!!! Even if the mother was too stupid to leave on her own....once the child is exposed and endangered...its time to get the H*LL out!
I wonder how this will affect Doctor's mal-practice insurance rates? :o
Maybe he needs a helping hand.
...or
Maybe he needs a new piece of a$$???
...oh, never mind.
EEEEEEWWWWWW Barfbag please! :-)
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