Lesley Eugene Warren

Lesley Eugene Warren (born October 15, 1967), known as The Babyface Killer, is an American serial killer who murdered at least three women in North and South Carolina from 1989 to 1990.

Convicted and sentenced to death for the murders in North Carolina, he later confessed to five additional murders, including one in New York, but was never charged with them.

Lesley Eugene Warren was born on October 15, 1967, in Candler, North Carolina, the older of two sons born to Douglas Eugene Warren and Phyllis West.

Reportedly, he began to exhibit signs of antisocial behavior from an early age and was diagnosed with autism at the age of three.

As a child, he struggled with establishing emotional connections with the people around him, which further worsened after the birth of his brother Laron Ray in 1970.

Following the birth of his second son, Warren's father began to struggle financially and would begin to physically abuse his family.

In 1971, he set fire to the family's trailer that almost killed his wife and one of the boys.

After the incident, Phyllis divorced him and moved in with relatives, accompanied by the children.

Douglas continued to stalk and harass her, which resulted in Phyllis being awarded full custody of their two children and being granted a restraining order against her ex-husband.

In September 1974, Lesley began attending the Emma Elementary School in Candler, where he often clashed with classmates and was often sent to the school's psychologist.

During his school years, he had no interest in learning and did not participate in sports, which made him unpopular among his peers.

By 1981, Warren began attending Erwin High School - shortly afterwards, he began arguing with his mother, which caused him to be stressed out and further impacted his academic performance.

After having several conversations with the teenager, the school psychologist suggested that Warren undergo psychotherapy.

By the end of 1981, his mental condition deteriorated rapidly.

At around the same time, Warren began spending much of his free time with petty criminals, with he himself soon engaging in burglaries, doing drugs and threatening peers with physical violence.

In January 1982, he was arrested for vandalism and expelled from school, whereupon he was placed in the Broughton Hospital for a psychological evaluation.

Based on the results of the evaluation, Warren was diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder and was prescribed treatment, which supposedly improved his mental health.

He was soon discharged and enrolled at Enka High School in September 1982, but was expelled 33 days later because he failed to attend for 20 school days.

In early October, his mother discovered marijuana in his room, and after arguing about it, Warren was thrown out of the house for the night.

On the following day, Warren returned to his mother's house, and while she was away, he abducted the next-door neighbor Betty Pressley and dragged her to the basement, where he tied her up.

At this point, Pressley's friend showed up to the house, but as he was unable to find her, he went around searching until he found her in the basement.

A struggled ensued between him and Warren, in which the latter shot the former with a revolver and then fled the scene.

The injury proved to be non-fatal, allowing the friend to free Pressley from her restraints and call the police.

Warren was arrested for this crime on October 4, 1982.

He admitted responsibility during questioning, and was then placed in the Buncombe County Detention Center to await trial.

Just a month after his arrest, he attempted to hang himself in his cell but failed, after which Warren was placed in a psychiatric hospital to undergo treatment.

After his mental health improved, he was convicted of kidnapping Pressley and the attempted murder of her friend, but as a juvenile, he received a minor sentence and was sent to the Juvenile Evaluation Center, where he remained until October 1985.

Upon his release, Warren returned to Candler, where he resided with his mother.

On April 4, 1986, he enlisted in the United States Army and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he soon attained the rank of Specialist.

While there, he married a girl named Tracy Bradshaw, who bore him two sons.

In late 1986, Warren was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, after which he was transferred to Fort Drum in New York.

On May 15, 1987, 20-year-old Patsy Diane Vineyard, the wife of one of Warren's colleagues stationed at Fort Drum, was murdered.

In mid-May, Michael Vineyard was sent away to partake in a field maneuvers exercise, after which Warren began an affair with his wife.

On May 15, while on a date together and using drugs, he raped and strangled her, after which he threw the corpse into the Black River near Sackets Harbor.

Her body was found floating in Lake Ontario a month later.

On February 25, 1988, Warren was apprehended by a military unit for going AWOL, for which he was incarcerated for 75 days and demoted to PFC.

On April 28, he was ordered to continue military service at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, but upon learning of this, Warren left and instead went to New York City, where he spent the summer living in homeless shelters and became addicted to drugs.

On June 17, Warren was dishonorably discharged from the Army and labeled a deserter.

At the end of the month, he left New York for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was arrested on vagrancy charges.

After serving a sentence at the local jail, he moved with his wife and child to Spartanburg, South Carolina in the fall of 1988.